


stand with me in the centre of this swirling maelstrom

by gohoubi



Series: splinters of broken glass [2]
Category: Snowpiercer (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Developing Relationship, Everybody Lives, F/F, Family Drama, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury Recovery, Pillow Talk, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26910253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gohoubi/pseuds/gohoubi
Summary: Audrey thinks her troubles are over now that she has escaped from Wilford's abuse. However, back on Snowpiercer Audrey gets dragged into a storm of emotion that is not of her own making.
Relationships: Miss Audrey/Melanie Cavill
Series: splinters of broken glass [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966345
Comments: 20
Kudos: 29





	1. Audrey

**Author's Note:**

> I loved writing the previous fic in this series and I was very surprised by its positive reception, so I wanted to continue that story here. Hope y'all like it! 
> 
> This fic, while containing some of the less savoury aspects of the previous work, is not as visceral as that one. However I will try and tag trigger warnings as best as possible.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Audrey has recovered from her injuries, but still she remains in the medical car.

Audrey watches them all recover, heal from Wilford’s horrors. Watches them all leave the medical room, hand in hand with family, friends, or sometimes on their own.

After two weeks, she is the only one left.

 _When can I leave?_ she asks Pelton and Klimpt every day. _Not yet,_ they tell her. _Not safe. You have to fully recover first._

 _When will that be?_ she asks then, and they can’t give her an answer.

Every day, Audrey sits on her bed in the corner and watches the two doctors pack up the medical room. Folding up equipment and furniture to go back in storage. Now that all the patients and visitors have gone, the room feels empty and antiseptic white. When she gets bored of that, she watches the landscape outside the window pass her by. Occasionally, Klimpt will shuffle up to her and announce to nobody in particular that ‘we’re passing by Anchorage now.’

The bruises have darkened and lightened in succession. Now they are just faded yellowish splotches, practically invisible now. The cuts have healed and smoothed over into scars. The scabs on her wrists are gone, but tiny white lines remain to remind Audrey of her capture. The sizeable divot on her arm, the one she thought would never heal, has closed over, leaving an ugly, rippled scar the size of a strawberry. Even the taser burn has settled down. Audrey thinks of Dr. Walker, that fussy, neurotic man who probably saved her life. Where is he now? Probably dead, in all honesty. Or imprisoned by Layton. She can’t see them wasting his medical potential.

Why can’t she leave? All the wounds have scarred over. Her cracked rib healed up a week ago. Audrey has little idea why they’re treating her with kid gloves, and she doesn’t like it. She thought it might have been due to her fragile mental state, but that wasn’t it either. “Your mental state is fine,” Pelton said, caustic as always. “It’s your physical state I’m worried about. You get winded just walking to the bathroom. I’ve seen where you live. That ladder is a death trap.”

“So give me a wheelchair or something. Someone else can carry me up that ladder.”

“And how will you get down?” Pelton asked, clipping a pulse oximeter on Audrey’s finger. “If you fall and break your spine, you’re fucked, in medical terms. You will stay here, build up your strength, and _then_ you can go home.”

Pelton is right, though Audrey hates to admit it. Even after all this time, Audrey still finds it difficult to walk. Not only does it sap her energy, it hurts like hell. Standing is a little easier, but she always has to sit down after a while. It scares her, how ten days in Wilford’s care (or lack thereof) has changed her.

Every day, Zarah comes to visit her, occasionally with Clay or another Nightcar attendant in tow. Most days though, Zarah is alone when she comes. They skirt around the events of the previous month in an unspoken agreement. It’s always there, a black cloud hanging over everything they say.

“How’s the baby?” Audrey will ask, trying to find an emotionally uncharged thing she can talk about.

“Fine,” Zarah will say, every time.

Melanie has not made a reappearance since right after Audrey was rescued. Everything from that time is hazy. Audrey is half-convinced it never happened at all. Why, then, does she long for Melanie so much, more than anyone else? At night, she is alone. Before, she shared the medical car with other Wilford victims, and the car was never quiet. People marinating in pain or terror or both, the sounds of human misery coalescing into a maelstrom. Now everyone is gone, and Audrey has as much silence as she could want. Even Klimpt and Pelton have stopped supervising her at night. Occasionally one of them will shuffle through, but Audrey knows it’s a formality at this point. She is alone, left behind in the mire. Unable to fully shake off the chains of Wilford. It annoys her that even after death he is still making his presence known. Like a dense fog she can’t find her way out of.

Audrey is not so stupid, or ungrateful, to describe the medical car as a cage. Big Alice was a cage. But even so, she wonders when the day will come that she can spread her wings again.


	2. Audrey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Audrey is alone at night in the medical car, and receives an unexpected visitor.

During the day, Audrey is kept busy. Pelton won’t let her go home until she gets her strength back. The exercises are exhausting and painful. The doctor makes her walk the length of the car, over and over. Audrey’s abused muscles protest this treatment, but Pelton won’t let her slip. “You want to go home, don’t you?”

Of course she does. So she keeps walking. Slowly but surely, the number of lengths Audrey can walk before collapsing increases. Five, ten, twenty, thirty-five. She goes to bed every night with her legs aching, but every day her own home gets closer. 

After one particularly gruelling day walking up and down, Audrey goes to bed with her legs weak and burning. Pelton only gives her painkillers if she’s really struggling. No matter how much Audrey begs, Pelton won’t budge. Audrey gets underneath the covers, painkiller-less. She lets out a sob, at the thought of another night spent alone and in pain.

“Are you okay?” Klimpt asks, in his bemused way. Audrey could usually find the patience to humour him, but this time she does not. “No, I’m not,” Audrey gets out, pulling the duvet all the way up to her chin. “Just let me sleep.”

“Alright,” he says, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “is there anything else you need?”

“I need painkillers.” Audrey squashes down the impulse to add _you blithering fool_ to that statement.

“Dr. Pelton says no painkillers,” Klimpt says, in the way of a child reciting a rule to a teacher. “We can’t waste them on you.” The unexpected callousness of that statement pushes Audrey over the edge, and she begins to cry, sobs racking her body.

“What do you want?” asks Klimpt tremulously, his hands shaking. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you want.”

Rage wells up in Audrey, burning all logic away. _Shambling idiot!_ Pelton at least had emotional intelligence, despite her constant sarcasm. If it wasn’t for her general weakness, Audrey would strangle this man. She wants to throw something, but there is nothing in reach. “Go away,” Audrey flings at him, barely able to see Klimpt through her tears. “Just go away. Leave me alone.” She flops over, buries her face in the pillow. As harmless as he is, Audrey doesn’t want Klimpt to see her cry. After a few seconds, she hears shuffling footsteps receding, then the room is plunged into darkness. She looks up from the pillow. The medical car is dark and empty, the only illumination coming from the orange emergency lights. Audrey is completely alone here. Nobody else. Just her. The medical car looks nothing like the one on Big Alice - but Audrey can’t shake the feeling that she never left. That Wilford could come striding in the door as usual, guards in tow -

 _Stop. Don’t think about that. You can’t._ Audrey tries to force Wilford away with something more comforting. Deep in the murky abyss of her memories, there are images of Melanie. They are all blurred by a haze of residual pain and terror, but they’re there. Holding Audrey’s hand as she woke up. Staying with her that one night. Comforting Audrey though the terrifyingly unending pain. The only constant in that awful time. And now she was gone.

 _I want…her._ Audrey feels it, a huge black chasm opening in her heart - that need, for someone else. She feels like a child, naked and alone in the universe. This whole room, this whole car, this whole train feels cold. Audrey imagines herself crashing through a frozen-over lake, the ice reforming above her as she sinks. Cold and dark, pressing in. _I wish she was here, just so she could hold me in her arms and tell me I was safe._

But no matter how much Audrey longs for her, Melanie is in the engine, completely out of reach. A six thousand, four hundred metre trek. _I used to go on hikes that were five times that length,_ Audrey thinks vaguely. Perhaps she could try walking there. Audrey is no longer ‘Third Class’ - she has access to every part of the train. An image of herself passed out, sprawled in a cabbage planter, enters Audrey’s mind. Even if she did make it there without incident, would Melanie let her in? Audrey dismisses the whole idea. Melanie could be on the moon for all the distance between them.

Except. At the far end of the medical car is a silver cabinet which houses a corded phone. Audrey could ring the engine room. Maybe hear Melanie’s voice, even ask her to come down…Audrey’s heart speeds up in anticipation. She flips the covers back, shivers under the cool air. The floor is cold and hard against her bare feet, and her legs ache, but she forces herself to walk to the phone. The phone sits in its recess, a small red light the only indication it’s even functional. She only knows two numbers: the Nightcar, and the engine. Layton made all the train leaders memorise the engine number, in case they needed to contact the engineers quickly. Audrey knows it, could punch it in blindfolded: **829384**. Audrey also knows that despite the late hour, Melanie will most likely be awake. Failing that, Alexandra might be up.

 **8\. 2.** Should she do it? Should she call Melanie? Even just to hear her voice on this lonely night? She could be here in twenty minutes using the subtrain. She would not have to spend this night on her own.

 **9\. 3.** Was Audrey just overthinking it? Seeing a connection between them when really there was none?

 **8\. 4.** The receiver crouches in its holder, like a spider. _Stop being scared of it. It’s just a hunk of plastic._ Audrey picks it up, hears the dial tone ringing into nothingness. Once she finishes putting in the number, the train computer will put the call through to the engine. Once she presses the ‘call’ button, Audrey will not be able to take it back. 

The call button makes a soft click when Audrey pushes it. An automated voice says: _Please wait. Your call will be patched through to your desired car in a few moments._ Audrey imagines the wires running over four hundred cars, all the way to the engine. Her lonely desire, traveling like its own mini-train to Melanie. A burst of static, then: “Hello, engine room.” A decidedly human voice, and it’s Melanie, to Audrey’s relief.

“It’s me,” she says, with no introduction. Audrey hopes it’s not too obvious that she’s been crying.

“That better not be fucking Ruth again,” Bennett yells from somewhere in the background. “I’m not listening to her complain about the noise for the fifth time. It’s a fucking train, it makes noise.”

“No, it’s not,” Melanie calls back to him. There are footsteps, the voices recede. “Sorry, he’s drunk. Audrey. This is unexpected, it’s late…is everything okay?” Far from the annoyance Audrey expects to hear, the other woman’s voice is kind, concerned even.

“I don’t know. I’m alone down here.” Audrey feels paralysing confusion; she didn’t expect to make it this far. She doesn’t know what to say, how to say it in such a way that Melanie can divine what she is thinking. Judging from her halting speech, Melanie is probably feeling the same way. Before the silence gets too long, Audrey says, “It’s nothing. I don’t know why I called. I just…I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to come see you?” Melanie asks gently. “I can, if you want. I can be there in twenty minutes...“

Abruptly Audrey feels her blood run cold, her fear stealing the air from the room. “No, it’s fine,” she says quickly, then slams the receiver back into its recess. Audrey backs away from the phone, as if it will bite her hand off. Forces herself back to bed and under the covers. It’s inaudible from here, but she imagines the dead air on her side of the line. Will Melanie call back? Or will she just brush it off? Both options sound unbearable.

The phone rings again. Audrey makes no move towards it. Eventually it stops, and the medical car falls silent again. _Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did I do that? She’ll just think I’m needy...and she’ll probably come down here to investigate. What will I do then? What’s going to happen?_

Audrey tosses and turns for a while, her stomach in knots. The possibility of Melanie turning up is too remote to entertain, yet she can’t not hope for it. She imagines it like a trashy romance drama - the long-lost lover smashing down the door after an interminably long time apart. A heartfelt confession, a warm embrace - 

Something clicks. In the silence of the medical car, it sounds like a gunshot. Audrey scrambles up the bed, holding the duvet up in front of her. A bar of light expands at the far end of the room, then contracts to nothingness. In the dim orange light, she can’t see who it is. _I don’t remember Melanie being this short…_

“Audrey?” A much younger voice, a small figure, with short frizzy hair. “It’s Alexandra. Are you okay?”


	3. Alexandra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexandra goes to see Audrey after her phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL, I was not expecting Alexandra to show up here or get a whole chapter to herself, but I thought: why not? Have fun with it. Just FYI, she'll be showing up more in this fic. She's an interesting character. We gotta see more of her. There will be Melanie in this, I promise :D

Her mother lets the phone drop. “She’s just hung up. Out of nowhere. Why did she call me?”

“Call her again,” Javi suggests, taking a swig from his glass. He puts it back down on the control desk, next to Bennett’s head where he has fallen asleep.

“Maybe she’s in trouble,” Alexandra says. “I could go down there.” Melanie inputs the number again: **273546**. She leans over the receiver a little, her long dark hair obscuring her face.

“Audrey’s in the medical car, right?” Javi settles his glasses on his nose. “She should be fine. Isn’t one of the doctors always there?”

“Not necessarily. Especially if she’s the only patient,” Melanie says, turning away from the phone a little bit. “Oh good, the call’s gone through.” There is a few seconds of silence, then she puts the receiver back down. “She’s not picking up.”

“I could go down there,” Alexandra says again, already half-standing. “Just to check.”

“Are you sure?” Melanie says, turning towards her. “It’s late. It may not be safe.”

 _Wilford wasn’t safe, and you left me with him!_ Alexandra screams in her mind, and she almost says it aloud. Then another voice takes over: _voicing those thoughts is unproductive. Channel it into something useful._ In any case, Melanie’s face does show genuine concern. It’s been a year, but Alexandra still can’t get used to this, to someone thinking about her wellbeing beyond her usefulness to the train. Wilford occasionally could be somewhat fatherly, but in the air of a boss with an employee. It feels alien, to know that Melanie cares about her without any logical reason for it.

 _Believe it._ Audrey’s voice, and with that, the anger cools a little. “Mom, I’ll be fine,” Alexandra says, sitting down again. “I’ll go in the subtrain. Wilford’s gone. I’ll be fine.”

Melanie bites her lip. Alexandra can see the cogs turning in her head from here. “Alright, go. Stay safe.” She reaches out but pulls away, perhaps thinking better of it.

“At least you’ll miss us trying to get Bennett in bed,” Javi chuckles, lifting the half-asleep engineer’s arm over his shoulder.

“Take your jacket,” Melanie says, taking Bennett’s other arm. “It gets cold in the subtrain.” Alexandra resists the urge to say _duh, I already know that._ “Sure. I will.”

* * *

As much as the concern grates on her, Alexandra admits her mother is right - the subtrain is freezing at night. Even with the extra power from the commandeered Big Alice, they still keep the energy levels low here. The train sways as it goes past a corner, and Alexandra leans to one side to compensate. As if by instinct. The pistons sigh in their enclosures, in and out. It sounds oddly like breathing.

Alexandra likes the engineers, cocky Bennett and squirrelly Javi, enjoys spending time with them. She’s even broken the ice with her mother; but she prefers to be alone. The engineers have spent seven years together, looking after a doomed train. Alexandra feels like an interloper, pushing herself into their clique, disrupting their balance. No matter what, she doesn’t fit in, even if she’s related to one of them.

Alexandra had asked her mother, _do I even have a place here?_

_Of course you do. You always will._

Alexandra doesn’t know how she’s supposed to treat her mother anymore. Straddling the line between daughter and coworker. Alexandra has constantly said she forgives her mother, that she doesn’t have to walk on eggshells around her, but it didn’t stick. As far as she’s concerned, Melanie will never forgive herself for what she did. _Your mother was just beginning to work through her trauma when you reappeared, did you know that? She won’t tell you, but that’s how it played out. Melanie’s happy that you’re back, but she doesn’t want to feel it. She doesn’t think she deserves to…revel, if you will, in your return. She wants you back so desperately, but she’s too ashamed to verbalise it. You don’t have to indulge her, of course. You don’t owe anything to your mother, as callous as that sounds, especially after what she did. If you want nothing to do with her anymore, that’s your right…but if you want to slowly try and ease back into it, try your best to be patient. You’re allowed to make mistakes, though: both of you. This is a process._

So how was she supposed to act, then? With a mother too terrified to even show affection properly? Alexandra didn’t want to push herself on Melanie either. What good was it rubbing it in her face? It couldn’t be easy having to see your regrets personified everyday.

Yes, Alexandra prefers to be alone. Down here with the pistons, that either work, or don’t. There’s no mire of history to wade through, just telemetry and oil grease. Down here, there is always a right answer.

The subtrain transport sways on its mini-track up ahead, quiet and non-functional. Alexandra uses her engineer’s swipe card to activate it, the control panel slowly booting up. The display says **input car number**. Alexandra knows every single car of the train, from the Tail to First Class. Javi and Bennett had quizzed her on it: _Jackboot dormitory? Cars 230, 450, 780. First Class arboretum? Car 20. Drawers? Cars 650 to 690._ And so on. Alexandra uses the display’s tiny scroll wheel to get the exact number: **645**. She doesn’t even need to think about whether it’s correct - she has picked car 645, and she knows exactly what she’ll find there: the medical car, with Audrey inside it.

The transport takes ten minutes to get there at top speed. Alexandra sees only a few night shift workers on the way. They don’t acknowledge her. The first few months rumours constantly flew about the ‘strange dark-haired girl’ who haunted the subtrain at night; however, her legend has faded. When the transport creaks along with her in it, they don’t even turn around to watch. Alexandra passes by unmolested. The transport stops underneath car 645, as evidenced by the stencils on the walls. The subtrain access hatch reads **medical**.

Alexandra uses her swipe card again to open the access panel. The card reader beeps, and the hatch pops open. It opens into the hallway just outside - she clambers out of the shaft and closes the panel behind her. The doors to the medical car are shut tight; tall, grey, and imposing. 

The swipe card (stamped with **top level security clearance** in blood red letters) opens every door on the train. Bennett had given her a very serious lecture: _Never have that card out unless you are prepared for the consequences of using it. Sometimes you open a cupboard. Sometimes you open the doors to the outside. Prepare for all of that. Do you understand?_ Yes, yes, she did. The door slides open with a beep and a hiss. There is no light beyond except for a faint, ominous orange glow. Unless something has changed in half an hour, Audrey should be alone here. Alexandra takes a step further, down the corridor, to the right. In the corner, there is a bed with a lumpy human shape on top. The outline of it is unclear in the darkness.

“Audrey? It’s Alexandra. Are you okay?”

Audrey shifts on the bed. “It’s you?”

Alexandra crosses the last few metres to the end of the room. “Yeah, it’s me.” Audrey’s green eyes look dull and flat in the orange light, but the confusion is plain to see. “I heard your call, and I thought I’d just come down here, just to see if you were - “

“Not Melanie?” Audrey asks, cutting her off.

“No.” Alexandra takes a seat on the end of the bed. “I offered to come. We were worried.”

“I’m fine. I’m sorry I bothered you. I was just struggling being alone.” Audrey’s voice is hoarse, as if she has been recently crying.

“You don’t sound fine.” Alexandra shifts in her seated position. “You can talk to me. I won’t tell Melanie, if that’s what you’re worried about.” At the mention of her mother’s name, Audrey stiffens. “Okay, I won’t tell her.”

Audrey sighs, relaxes. “I didn’t want to be alone. I just wanted someone here with me tonight.” Alexandra wonders why it has to be her mother, and not Zarah or Clay or someone else Audrey knows better. Then again, she has no idea what transpired that night. Maybe Melanie and Audrey had a deeper connection than she thought.

“I’m sorry I’m not my mother. I didn’t know you wanted her.”

“It’s alright,” Audrey says, her voice cracking slightly. “Can you just…maybe lie here with me?” Alexandra does so, feels the other woman’s warmth next to her. Even though Audrey is no longer alone, she doesn’t seem to want to relax. The silence feels all-encompassing. Alexandra wants to break it, but the words won’t come. Indeed, what can she say? She knows what it’s like to be alone - her room in Big Alice was not even really a room, but a storage closet. It was loud, unstable, and dusty. Several nights were spent alone, with nightmares of Snowpiercer leaving without her. Unlike with Audrey, however, Alexandra could not ask for help.

“Thank you for coming,” Audrey says eventually. “You didn’t have to. But I’m glad you did.”

“No problem,” Alexandra replies, and the words feel unnatural to say. On Big Alice, asking for help was hard enough. Showing gratitude for it was unthinkable. The train sways, the orange lights flicker. Silence falls again. The silhouette of Audrey is fuzzy at the edges. Alexandra expects her to cry, or to say something else, but there doesn’t seem to be anything left to say.

 _Maybe she only just wanted someone around. Or she wants to talk to someone who’s not me._ Alexandra regrets coming now, regrets volunteering in her mother’s stead. If Melanie was here instead of her daughter, Alexandra could have stayed in the engine, asleep in her own bed without any thought for Audrey. What did they call it? _Blissful ignorance._ Alexandra wishes she wasn’t here. As if she is seeing something private and vulnerable; not meant to be seen, at least not by her. Now she knows the truth. The normally strong bastion of hope, defenceless!

 _What do I do? Can I even help her? Why did I come here?_ How did people comfort each other? What did they say? On Big Alice, emotions were to be dealt with alone, and away from others. Early on, Alexandra had tried to go to Wilford for reassurance occasionally, but he’d put a quick stop to it. _Deal with it, Alexandra. It’s in the past._ Somehow she thought Audrey would not respond so well to that. _Broken._

After a while, the train’s movement becomes regular, the swaying and flickering of the lights hypnotic. Alexandra feels sleep pulling her down. She welcomes it, if only to not have to feel these emotions she doesn’t want to feel.


	4. Audrey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Audrey gets discharged from the medical car and Melanie is there to go home with her.

Audrey wakes up late the next morning, face crusted to the pillow. Alexandra is gone. There is no mirror nearby, but in the window reflection she can see she’s had better days. Klimpt is nowhere to be seen. Pelton walks in, wheeling a monitor. “Heard you freaked out on Klimpt last night,” she says without preamble, holding out the pulse oximeter again. “First thing he told me when I came in.”

Audrey feels guilty now, far from the hot rage from a few hours ago. She takes the pulse oximeter, watches the saturation settle at 98. “Yeah.” Audrey doesn’t have the energy or the desire to elaborate. “I guess you could say that.”

Pelton flips between saturation and blood pressure on the monitor. “You know, I wish Wilford had shelled out for better monitors when this train was built. Maybe ones with larger screens so I could see every vital sign at once.” She turns the screen off, takes the oximeter back from Audrey. “Vital signs are fine. Anyway, Klimpt’s trying his best. Just bad luck it happened to be him here last night.”

Audrey leans back against the wall. “Not his fault.”

“He’s not used to emotional women flipping out on him. He’ll get over it.”

Pelton’s reassurance should count for something, but Audrey still feels ashamed. This is compounded even more when Klimpt arrives an hour later, scurrying past her and refusing to look her in the eye. He organises the sheets on one of the beds, keeping his head down as if his life depends on it.

“Now he’s just being dramatic,” Pelton scoffs. “Not like you’re going to bite him. Hey, did I say you could stop walking? Keep moving.”

“Sorry,” Audrey says, continuing her fiftieth length of the car. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Yes,” Pelton says, half exasperatedly and half reassuringly. “I promise he’ll get over it.”

* * *

The day progresses much like every other day in the medical car. Audrey spends it exercising, looking out the window, exercising some more, and refusing to meet the eye of Klimpt. Evening comes slowly, and Audrey is getting ready to settle in for another night when Pelton comes in again, holding a computer. “You’re getting discharged tonight,” the doctor says unceremoniously. “I think it’s safe enough for you to go home.”

“Wait. Really?” Audrey’s mind bumps up against _get to go home_ , then bobs against another question. “Why not this morning?”

“You probably don’t know this, but here’s a lot of paperwork that goes into discharging,” Pelton says, placing the computer on the edge of the counter nearby. On the screen Audrey can see what looks like medical records. “I am sorry you had to wait, but I have to log it in the system and everything. We gotta keep accurate records on this train, Audrey.”

“I get it, I get it. So can I go now?”

Pelton swipes the form offscreen, smiles knowingly. “Yeah, go home. There’s someone waiting for you.”

Audrey climbs off the bed, barefoot. When she was rescued, her clothes were in tatters, completely unsalvageable. She imagines her clothes are at the bottom of a frozen river somewhere thousands of kilometres away. Was she going to be forced to walk home in the medical car uniform she was given, which honestly resembled a paper towel? Audrey supposes after everything she’s been through she deserves a little clemency. _The others would have a fit if I performed in this._ “Stay safe,” Pelton says, short as ever. “Don’t fall off that ladder. And if something feels wrong, come back.”

“Sure. I will. Thank you.” Audrey doesn’t know what to say, or how to express her gratitude well enough. Luckily for her, Pelton seems to get it. “No problem. Go home. You did well.”

When Audrey palms the access pad at the end of the car, the doors slide open. She expects the hallway beyond to be empty, but it is not. Standing there is -

“Audrey,” Melanie says, turning around from her place at the window.

“Melanie. It’s you.” Audrey opens her mouth to ask a question: _Why are you here? Why did you come now? Why didn’t you come last night?_ but the other woman beats her to it. “I’m escorting you home,” Melanie says in a clipped voice, as if the words are being typed into the air. “Didn’t seem right to let you go home alone.”

“Melanie, I’m sorry about the call - "

“It’s fine,” Melanie says, her demeanour softening a little. “Did Alexandra make it here okay?”

“Yeah. It was nice of her to come. Where is she?”

“Fixing a vent leakage under First. She’ll come see you later. Here, I brought some clothes. I wasn’t able to get into your place, so these are mine.” Melanie holds the pile out. Audrey changes on the bench in the hallway, sees that it’s simply a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. It’s dark blue, with the Yale logo on it. They smell like engine oil and lemongrass - Melanie scent - and the wave of longing that comes with it is almost too much for Audrey to bear. They are the perfect size - they must be larger on Melanie. Audrey feels a rush of irrational sadness that she’ll have to give them back.

“We can take the subtrain,” Melanie says once Audrey is done. “You won’t have to walk so far.”

The subtrain is quiet. Melanie uses her engineer’s clearance to commandeer the transport for them. They ride in silence, not speaking. Audrey is happy to have Melanie back again, but she has no idea what to say. She spent hours rehearsing it: _I missed you. I wanted you. I still want you. I still miss you._ Now that they’re here, in the most privacy they’ll ever get, Audrey cannot speak the words. Something is strangling her, refusing to let the words come. Fear? Embarrassment?

As they get closer to the Nightcar, strains of jazz music get louder. The transport stops right underneath a ladder with a hatch. “This should come up in the hallway,” Melanie says, stepping off. Audrey eyes the almost half meter gap between the transport and the floor. She doesn’t want to try it, but also doesn’t want to ask for help. “Here,” Melanie says, holding her hand out. Audrey expects to see sympathy or pity in the other woman’s eyes, but there’s nothing. She takes Melanie’s hand gratefully, makes the step. As soon as they’re off, the subtrain trundles away. The hallway seems dark and foreboding. Twisting from side to side as the train moves around corners. Pistons keeping up their strange rhythm in the dark.

Second problem: the ladder. Down here the train is constantly shifting. The ladder is not that tall, but if she was to get thrown off it, Audrey would be right back where she started. _Pelton was right! I’m not ready for this…_

“You go first,” Melanie says neutrally, breaking the silence. “Don’t rush it. Make sure you place your feet correctly and everything.”

Well, she’ll have to attempt it at the very least. Audrey imagines herself unable to conquer even this tiny obstacle. Her heart twists with embarrassment over that hypothetical situation, and she knows she can’t fail at this in front of Melanie. The rungs look close together, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Audrey places her feet, takes one step up. Her legs protest, as she knows they would, but it’s not as painful as expected. Audrey makes it all the way to the top, albeit slowly but without incident. She pushes open the access panel, finds that it opens into the hallway just outside the experience room. Melanie comes up after her and closes the panel.

“Where is everyone?” Melanie asks. “It’s only six.”

“Probably hanging out on the dance floor. You know how it is.” As if on cue, a faint voice comes from the front of the car, clearly an apprentice taking over for Audrey. She feels strange, that her place has already been taken so quickly.

“Let’s just go back to my room,” Audrey says, wanting to get away from the strange new voice.

“Alright.” The ladder to Audrey’s room is in a small alcove next to a closet. Audrey likes her room where it is, because most people didn’t know to see it until they looked. Except for the ladder. The rungs are much further apart, and are clearly not meant for frequent use. Audrey looks at it, feels her mouth go dry. She was an idiot to think the subtrain would be the worst of it.

“You okay?” Melanie asks, slanting a glance over at her.

“Sure. Just. Wondering how I’m gonna get up this.” Audrey tries to say it casually, but her voice must betray her anxiety.

“You got all the way here, didn’t you? Just go slowly. There’s nobody else here. No rush.”

Audrey looks at the ladder again. She puts her hands on the rungs. When Audrey takes one step up, her legs shake so badly she thinks she might fall off.

“That’s one step. You just have…ten more to go,” Melanie says from below her.

Audrey’s legs feel like they have the strength of a Snowpiercer cracker. If she puts much more pressure on, they’ll crumble into nothing. She has to keep going though. If she stops now, she’ll never be able to live it down with Melanie. Audrey takes the next ten rungs as quickly as possible, ignoring the bone-tiredness that permeates every square centimetre of her legs. She drags herself over the top, flopping down onto the landing. “You made it,” Melanie says simply, when she joins Audrey on the landing. “We can stay here for a while until you can stand again.”

It used to be that Audrey could scale this ladder multiple times a day, going back and forth between shows. Now sitting here, her legs feel so weak she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to move at all. Melanie takes a seat beside her, while Audrey tries to calm herself down. The landing is so narrow they are practically squished up against each other. “Thanks for coming with me,” Audrey says, leaning back against the railing. “Did Pelton really call you?”

“Yeah. Said you were getting discharged and if I didn’t mind escorting you home.”

“I’m surprised she called you specifically. I mean, I don’t mind at all,” Audrey quickly amends, “but when she said someone was coming, I expected Zarah, or Clay.”

Melanie sighs apologetically. “Shit, I completely forgot about them. Sorry if you wanted to see - "

“No, it’s fine. I’ll see them tomorrow.” In all honesty, Audrey doesn’t want to see anyone, doesn’t want to field their questions or their hospitality. She just wants to sleep. “I’m glad you came, Melanie. Would have been harder getting up this ladder alone.” It slips out before she can catch herself, and immediately she regrets it. _Too hasty by far, Audrey!_

“Happy I could help,” Melanie replies, smiling just a little. _How did I not notice how beautiful that is?_

“I think I can stand again,” Audrey says after a while, clumsily getting to her feet. “I’m just going straight to bed. I’m tired as hell.”

“Understandable.” Melanie opens the door for her, stands back to let her through. The room beyond is exactly how Audrey left it a month ago, the mattress tidy, everything cleaned up. She’d locked the door behind her and left, full of anticipation for the day ahead. Where was Audrey going to that day? A meeting with Layton, probably - she was captured from near the frontline. She was walking down a little-used hallway when someone slammed the butt of a pistol into her temple, so hard all her memories of that day were reduced to mush. Audrey wishes she never left, curses her past self for being completely clueless as to the danger that awaited her. Can she admit that to Melanie?

“Look at you, being so hospitable in someone else’s home,” Audrey says instead.

“Just don’t want you to collapse through the doorway.” Melanie closes the door after Audrey, but she’s on the inside, and not the outside. _Does she want to stay with me this time?_

“You know, I feel bad for not coming to see you last night,” Melanie says, leaning against the door frame. “I shouldn’t have let Alexandra go. That wasn’t fair on you. Or her.”

“It’s fine,” Audrey says, taking off the borrowed clothes and folding them up on the couch. “It must have been unexpected for you to get that call.”

“It was. I’m sorry I didn’t come. It sounded like you needed someone.” Melanie pushes her hair back. “At any rate…how about a do-over?”

Audrey’s heart speeds up in anticipation, but she refuses to give in to that feeling, just in case it falls through. “What do you mean?”

Melanie smiles slightly, mischievously. “I can stay with you tonight, if you like. Seems a bit cruel to leave you alone on your first night out of hospital.”

Audrey’s temper flares a little in annoyance. “Don’t stay with me out of pity. I’m an adult, you know.”

“That was never my intention,” Melanie says, taking a step closer. “Let me put it this way. The engine is quite frankly terrible to sleep in. I’d much rather be here. With you. Only if you’ll have me,” she adds quickly.

Audrey wants this so badly. Everything she’s wished for since Melanie had left her that second day and never come back. Everything she wanted to achieve with that mortifyingly abortive phone call.

Completely against Audrey’s better judgement, the next word out of her mouth is “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I the only one who LOVES Lena Hall's rendition of Bad Religion? I stg I rewatch 1x05 just for that scene alone haha


	5. Melanie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie's thoughts during the night she stays with Audrey.

Nighttime is the only time Mel can truly think.

The train is quiet, resting, until the next day. Everyone has retreated to their respective classes, asleep, shut away for the night. Under the cover of darkness, Mel can let her thoughts unfold. Her emotions can be let loose, somewhere they won’t be used against her.

Despite the train’s low temperature, the attic room is reasonably warm. Mel lies on the side furthest from the window, maintaining a respectful thirty centimetre distance from Audrey. Why is she nervous about touching the other woman? They did a lot of that when Audrey was in hospital, yet it feels different to do it now. Mel wonders if Audrey remembers any of it, or if it’s all gone. Which one would be easier to take, Mel doesn’t know. There is a certain awkwardness cutting underneath every interaction they have, and Mel doesn’t understand where it’s coming from. The mysterious phone call from last night? Or even further back than that? It felt natural back then to be there for Audrey, to comfort her through the pain, but…now that everything is back to pseudo-normal, Mel doesn’t know where she stands anymore. Mel doesn’t even know what Audrey was thinking the night of the call, because as soon as Alexandra got back she refused to divulge anything. _Don't ask. She didn't say anything._ At the time Mel hadn’t pressed the issue, but now she wishes she did; even if all she got out of it was some warning about Audrey’s emotional state.

Audrey shifts on the mattress. Mel freezes in anticipation of her waking up, but the other woman sighs and goes back to sleep. Mel relaxes, and she can think again.

What are they meant to do now? What holds them together? They had a common enemy in Wilford, but he’s gone. Their friendship was tenuous at best, even before all that. Where did all that comfort come from, that ease around Audrey? As if the injuries Audrey sustained smoothed the path between them. Now Audrey is recovered and almost back to her old self, and the path is rocky again.

Audrey’s eyes open, luminous in the darkness. “Melanie?” Her hand moves jerkily towards Mel’s, as if she can’t decide whether to take it or not. “You’re still here?”

Mel wants to say _of course_ , but it sounds arrogant, so she settles for, “Yeah, I am.”

“You stayed?” Audrey shifts towards her, so close Mel can feel the other woman’s slow breathing. “You didn’t leave?”

“No. I’m still here.” Mel wants to reach out, to trace the sinuous curve of Audrey’s jawline. Run her fingers through that dark brown hair, which has now regained its lustre. “I’m always here.”

Audrey’s eyes look blank. Mel wonders if she’s even completely present, or if she’s residing in the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep. “Why did you stay?”

_Guilt_ , is the first word that comes to Mel’s mind, and second on the heels of that is a question: _am I here for her, or just to soothe my own conscience?_ She almost laughs at the irony. “I wanted to be here for you,” Mel says, intentionally vague.

Audrey doesn’t respond. Her eyes flutter closed slowly, and Mel sighs inwardly. So much for thinking they’d have a coherent conversation about it.

What is this feeling towards Audrey then? It isn’t plain friendship - friendship alone didn’t make Mel do what she did. Is it love, then? Platonic love? Is that a thing? Has Mel ever loved someone since the Freeze? Bennett, maybe. But he was just there, there to provide comfort and a warm body on a train where there was none. Mel realises she probably fulfilled the same purpose for him. This was different. Audrey was an ally, a friend, someone she could pass notes over the frontline to. That was them. Audrey was someone who could be understood, and would understand in return. Mel’s hospitality job and Audrey’s Nightcar responsibility were not that different, even if their circumstances are diametrically opposed.

Audrey mumbles unconsciously, her hand settling in Mel’s. It is warm and soft. Mel’s fingers tighten, and her heart twinges a little at how much she wants _more_ , to close the distance and seal the deal - 

But Mel won’t. Not here, not now. Not right on the heels of Audrey’s discharge from hospital. It wouldn’t be right. Wilford is gone, the train has been saved.

Mel has all the time in the world.


	6. Melanie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie spends time in the subtrain with Alexandra.

When Mel awakens, slowly and with the sun pouring in the window, she is not alone. Audrey is still asleep next to her, brown hair fanned out on the pillow. She’s breathing evenly, curled up underneath the comforter. The train sways gently, the floor creaking slightly.

Audrey shifts and her eyes flutter open. “You stayed.”

“I did.” Mel stretches out, her fingers within touching distance of Audrey. “It’s the best night of sleep I’ve had in a while.”

“Wow, it’s late,” Audrey says, clumsily getting to her feet. “Normally I’m up at six." She takes the pile of clothes from the couch, hands them to Mel. “You can have these back. Thanks for letting me use them.”

Mel looks the hoodie folded on top, perfectly so as to display the Yale logo on the front. In all likelihood the last one in the world. “Keep it,” she says to Audrey, gently pushing it back. “You can have it. I have others just like it back in the engine.” A lie, but Mel wants to leave something of hers with Audrey. If she can’t stay here permanently -

“You got anywhere to be?”

“I have to go back to the engine…my shift starts in half an hour.” 

Audrey quirks a sneaky smile. “Will the other engineers give you grief about being down here?”

Mel returns it with no hesitation. “I can deal with them.” _Anything for you._ “I wish I could stay here forever.”

“Well. You’re always welcome to come back. If you want.”

Does Mel want? Yes. She does.

* * *

The engine room is almost exactly as Mel left it yesterday afternoon. Javi is sitting with his feet up on the control desk, reading a well-thumbed copy of _The Chrysalids._ He turns around as Mel comes towards him. “Oh, you’re back,” Javi says, closing his book. “Spending half the night with your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Mel says reflexively, sitting down at the computers. “We just enjoy each other’s company.”

Javi shrugs, running his hands through his frizzy hair. “Nothing much has happened while you were gone, thanks for asking. Bennett’s off. I think he’s in Third Class somewhere. Alexandra is in the subtrain. Fixing that vent leakage.”

“Still?”

“Yeah. Supposedly it’s a bigger problem than she thought.”

“I’ll go down and see her then.”

The subtrain access in the engine hallway is propped open, the hatch yawning open. The ladder goes down, disappearing into darkness. Mel doesn’t know what she’ll find down there. Her daughter, yes - but what version of her daughter? 

Alexandra is unscrewing a pipe next to the offending vent, tools scattered on the floor in front of her. She’s facing away from the ladder, but she turns around when she hears Mel coming down.

“Mom.”

“Javi told me you were down here. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Alexandra says, taking a spanner out of her pocket. “The pipe won’t stay sealed. I’ve got it. I should be done soon.”

Silence falls. Alexandra turns back to the pipe. Mel feels the awkwardness settle around them like a heavy fog. She’s not so obtuse as to think they could ever have a mother-daughter relationship again, but she hoped after a year some progress could be made. _I wish Audrey was here._

“How’s your talks with Audrey been going?” Mel asks, for lack of anything else to say. “Have they been…helpful?”

“Yes,” Alexandra says, in a short way. “We talk about a lot of things. It’s good.”

Mel feels it again, the guilt. _She wouldn’t have to do any of that if it wasn’t for you!_ Alexandra drops a wing-nut on the floor. She curses, reaches for it underneath a deck-plate. When she does so, her shirt rides down a little, and Mel can see scars at the nape of Alexandra’s neck. She’s seen them before, many times, but they never fail to make her stomach turn. Mel looks away. If she stares at them any longer - 

“What’s wrong?” Alexandra asks, standing up, wing-nut in hand.

“Nothing. Nothing.” Mel rubs her eyes, takes a seat on the floor. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

Alexandra’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t question this. She turns back to the pipe, undoing a bolt with the spanner. Her hands are callused and ridged with burns; Mel assumes she got them from working on Big Alice. Another shot of guilt. How is she supposed to reconcile this hardened older girl with the small nine-year-old she left seven years ago? How is she supposed to deal with it? Just so she doesn’t have to think about any of that, Mel asks, “Do you need help at all?” 

“I’m alright,” her daughter says lightly, opening the pipe. It is dark and gloomy on the inside: Mel knows that it transfers reclaimed water to First Class. There is no water running through it now, but it smells damp in there. _She has been alone for seven years. It makes sense that she’d be self-reliant, right?_ Audrey had said that to Mel, gently and without judgement.

Alexandra tightens the wing-nut until it creaks slightly. “Mom, you didn’t have to come down here. I was doing fine before.”

“I know. I just worry about you being down here by yourself.” Alexandra’s face remains neutral, but Mel can see her fist tighten in the corner of her eye.

“I’ll be fine. I can handle it.” Her daughter’s voice has the slightest edge. Alexandra is relatively calm now, but Mel knows not to push the envelope. There’s also the wiry, defined muscles barely visible underneath Alexandra’s clothes, and she’d rather not be on the receiving end of them.

_She’s not the person I once knew._

_That’s not her fault. It’s hard, I know. Just try and get to know her. Without forcing yourself on her._

Except that was exactly what she was doing now. _You can’t do anything right, Melanie._ Wilford’s voice from years and decades ago, before Snowpiercer, before the Freeze. When some server crash had forced her to redesign the arboretum car from scratch. Mel feels both guilt and love warring for eminence. Alexandra is alive, close enough to touch, yet so far away.

“I’ll go back, then,” Mel says, standing up. “If you’ve got everything handled down here.”

“Okay,” Alexandra says. Just before Mel crosses the threshold into the next car over, she looks back slightly. 

_Just put your affection out there, gently. She doesn’t have to take it if she doesn’t want to, but you can try._

“I love you, okay?” Mel says, one foot already on the access ladder. “I promise.” She doesn’t wait for her daughter’s reaction - Mel doesn’t have the courage for that. As she clears the last few rungs of the ladder, the last thing she sees is Alexandra’s scandalised face.


	7. Alexandra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexandra spends time with Audrey.

Alexandra finishes up on the pipe soon after, her hands shaking slightly.

_I love you, okay?_

Just one phrase, enough to send her into a tailspin! Her shift ends a few hours later, but Alexandra does not go back to the engine. The likelihood that Melanie is there is high, and she doesn’t want to be around her mother right now. The Nightcar materialises in her mind’s eye. It’s a Tuesday afternoon, so it’s unlikely there will be a show on. Audrey should be free. Alexandra packs up her tools, puts them in a box welded to the wall. Bennett would probably have something to say about her leaving them in the subtrain, but she can’t face going back. If she picks them up on her way home, he probably won’t notice. The subtrain transport beckons. Alexandra uses the scroll wheel on the display: **349**. 

Alexandra feels herself relaxing as she climbs up the access ladder into the Nightcar. Aside from the subtrain, this is the only place on Snowpiercer where she feels truly at ease. As she expected, it’s quiet inside, with only a couple of First Class passengers seated at one of the tables. Zarah and Clay are both at the bar, talking.

Clay spots her first. “Well, if it isn’t Alexandra Cavill. Our newest engineer.” His tone is more welcoming than his words.

“Coming to hang out with us, are you?” Zarah asks, winking. “It’s been a while. So what’s been going on?” Zarah slides along a plastic coaster with a glass of water on top.

“Nothing much. Been working on the train.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that been going for you?” Zarah leans across the bar conspiratorially, evoking faded memories of high school girls on TV. “Fixing pipes, running the train, saving humanity?”

Alexandra smiles in spite of herself. She takes a sip from the water, which tastes metallic. After years of living on Big Alice, she doesn’t notice it half the time. “I guess so. It’s not really running the train though.”

“Still…anything else happen? How’s your mom?”

Alexandra goes silent. Zarah is kind to her, and easy to talk to, but Alexandra doesn’t want to tell her anything. Trying to express the depth of the mire she’s in with Melanie seems like an insurmountable challenge. Something must show in her face, because Zarah swiftly changes the subject. “Audrey will be happy to see you at least,” she says lightly. “She told us all about how you visited in the middle of the night.”

Alexandra feels both pride and embarrassment at that statement. She wonders what else Audrey has told the others, when Audrey herself comes in.

“Alexandra,” she says, by way of greeting. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

 _Has she been expecting me?_ “You were?”

“Of course. After what you did in the medical car, I’d been waiting for a chance to thank you properly.” Audrey takes a seat at the bar. Zarah gives her a drink without being asked. “How’s things been for you?”

“Alright,” Alexandra says, lying. She wants to tell Audrey about what just happened, but also doesn’t want to unload so soon after the medical car incident. Audrey locks eyes with Alexandra, and all the noise of the Nightcar fades away. “We can go in the back,” she says, her gaze unmoving. This is code for _do you want to talk about it?_ Sometimes Alexandra does want to talk. Sometimes she does not. _We can go in the back._ An innocuous, open-ended sentence. Not a command, or even a question. Just a statement Alexandra can take however she likes.

 _We can go in the back._ Alexandra thinks on what to do. Could she tell Audrey everything that just happened? The awkward conversation, the ‘I love you’?

She might as well. If Audrey was the one offering. “Sure,” says Alexandra, putting her glass down. Audrey nods wordlessly, getting up from her chair. She says nothing, but Zarah gives Alexandra another glass of water. Nobody gives them a second glance as they push aside the curtain to behind the bar.

The space behind the bar is so crammed with various objects that Alexandra can barely have two feet in the same place at once. On the left is a strange setup of chemical equipment that Clay had told her was for making alcohol. In the far back corner is a mirror with lightbulbs around the edge. Crates full of clothing and books litter the floor. Over all of that is a web of string lights that cast a soft twilight over the room. Unlike the cold white engine room this space is close, and homely. Alexandra likes it here, would sleep here if she could. This room feels like the home she left behind. Audrey pulls up two of the crates which they always sat on. “So. What’s been going on?”

“My mother’s been acting weird.” At Audrey’s look, Alexandra quickly clarifies, “More than usual.”

“Did something happen today?”

“Yeah. I was in the subtrain under First, fixing a vent. Melanie came down after I’d been there for a while. We had this awkward conversation, then as she leaves she told me ‘I love you’!” Alexandra sees something flicker in Audrey’s expression. “Did you put my mother up to that?”

“I told her to ‘put her affection out there gently’. Emphasis on ‘gently’.” Audrey sighs, running her fingers through her hair. “She’s trying her best.”

“Doesn’t seem like it. She’s so awkward around me, as if- as if she’s scared of me.”

_A plush waiting room. Many richly dressed occupants. “I’ll see you on the train,” she’d said._

_“Don’t leave, mommy,” Alexandra whined, holding onto Melanie’s arm. “Don’t go away.”_

_“I promise I’ll see you soon. I just have to get some things ready first. Be good for grandma and grandpa.” A quick hug, and then: “I love you, okay?”_

_“Love you too.” Alexandra said it back, despite the childish misgiving that coiled in her stomach._

“Alexandra,” Audrey says gently, “we’ve been over this.”

“I know, I know.” Alexandra squeezes her eyes shut, opens them again. When she does, the string lights look like blurry stars. “It’s just. It’s not my fault for existing.”

“No, it isn’t.” Audrey shifts on the crate, which creaks slightly. “Your mother can feel whatever she likes. But she shouldn’t be treating you differently because of it. We’ve talked about this before: when your mother acts like this, how do you feel?”

Alexandra dimly remembers a preschool class, a whiteboard with ‘big feelings’ written on it in green marker. “The same as always. Angry, and…” ‘Sad’ doesn’t cut it, but ‘despair’ feels like too much. “And pushed away.” Alexandra takes a gulp from the water glass so she doesn’t have to continue. Audrey sits up straighter, her eyes calculating. Shuffling everything around in her mind, updating on her client’s mental state. “‘Pushed away’. I haven’t heard that out of you before. Explain that to me.”

“It’s just…” Alexandra puts down the glass. “It’s like. Melanie keeps me at arm’s length all the time. Like she talks to me, but she acts like she doesn’t want to do it. Like she’d rather be anywhere else. I know I remind her of what she did, but how’s that my problem?”

Audrey leans over, takes Alexandra’s hand gently. “I hear you. I see that would be hard to deal with.”

“Will she ever stop being like that?”

“I don’t know. Melanie has her own trauma to deal with.”

Alexandra slips her hand out of Audrey’s, takes another sip from the glass. Squeezing it so hard it might break. Staying silent, watching her fingers drain of colour. _I don’t want to feel pity for her!_

“I can see I’ve angered you,” Audrey says evenly. “Talk to me.”

“Melanie…” Alexandra puts the glass down a second time, “…got herself in this mess. What is there to heal from? Why doesn’t she just deal with it, rather than pushing it onto me?”

Audrey seems to relax a little, as if she knows the answer to this question. “I’ve been a therapist for twenty years. It takes a lot of bravery to admit you have a problem. Most people don’t have that bravery. Even now.” The bar outside seems to be getting rowdier - Alexandra can hear the clinking of glasses and faint voices. “I can tell your mother all I like about how to cope with this, but I can’t control whether or not she actually does it. Also, I’m trying to unpack seven years of repressed guilt with her. It’s only recently she’s started talking about it, you know. Melanie doesn’t allow herself to feel for seven years then suddenly it all comes back.”

“But - “

“I haven’t finished. Have you two ever talked? Like a one-on-one, no distractions, just the two of you?” Alexandra opens her mouth in indignation, but Audrey barrels on. “I shouldn’t keep being the intermediary for both of you. I think you should have an actual conversation with her. You’re both acting in ways that you think is better for the other person, but you’re just driving the wedge deeper. Go talk to her, be patient. Use ‘I feel’ statements.”

Audrey is putting up a convincing case, but wariness still gnaws at Alexandra. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“Then you’ll both come in and we’ll have this conversation as the three of us. But I want to try it just the two of you first. Okay?”

Alexandra drains the rest of her water. “Alright. I’ll try it.” Audrey takes her hand, and is warm and soft. Everything that Alexandra is not. She feels sadness, and inadequacy, nibbling at her. _It’s been a year, I should be able to -_

“Hey. Hey.” Audrey’s eyes are full of concern, which makes Alexandra feel worse. _I don’t deserve it!_ “I’m glad you came and talked to me.”

“I should have it figured out by now.”

“It’s a process. There’s a lot to be worked through. You’re doing good. Alright?”

“Alright.”

Audrey steps back, smiles at Alexandra. “Go see your mother. Call me if you want to talk. I’m always here.”

* * *

Alexandra got back to the engine ready to do what Audrey told her, but Melanie was conspicuously absent. Javi told her she was meeting Layton, which was probably true. Melanie didn’t show up for the rest of the day, not for evening meal, or for the night shift. Alexandra ends up going to bed alone, with Javi and Bennett both being out. She pulls the fuzzy pink blanket over herself and tries to go to sleep. Alexandra’d missed this blanket sorely while on Big Alice. Her room there was nothing more than a cell, with a rickety trunk bed and a dresser. On top of the bed was a dark green sleeping bag that said **army surplus** in white letters. When she arrived on Snowpiercer, the fuzzy blanket was the first thing Melanie had given her. Alexandra had wished she had the blanket with her on Big Alice, but it was probably just as well. Wilford would have burned it the first chance he got.

Alexandra feels sleep pulling her under, but then she hears the door pop open, a light tread on the floor. This could only be Melanie. Alexandra freezes, hoping that her mother doesn’t notice she’s awake. Judging by the noise and Melanie’s quick breathing, she’s clearly preoccupied. Instead of going to bed, she goes to the corded phone in the bunk room, and Alexandra can hear her quickly dialing a number. Melanie picks up the phone. “Audrey, I’m glad you answered, I…” Melanie falls silent, unable to finish her sentence. A whisper from the phone: Audrey speaking.

Melanie takes a breath, then, “I don’t know, I just…did you see her today?” A short buzz, Audrey’s affirmative. “What…what did she say?” Alexandra’s stomach drops in anticipation of Audrey betraying her confidence, but Melanie says, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked…” and she can relax. The moon slides into view from behind a cloud, casting a ghostly bar of light over the bunk. Melanie takes a shaky breath. “I don’t deserve it,” she whispers, her voice thick with emotion. “I don’t deserve her presence, or her forgiveness - “ A buzz: Audrey’s words. “She treats me so normally…why? After everything I’ve done?” Melanie’s voice cracks on the last word. “I’m scared she’s just pretending. Maybe she’ll snap one day, and go live down in Third Class. With LJ, of all people.”

Alexandra stifles a snort. As awkward as the living situation is, she can’t imagine doing anything but looking after the train. She isn’t exactly enthused about being neighbours with LJ either. There’s a long interlude of Audrey speaking, then Melanie says, “I don’t know how. I want to be with Alexandra, but…she’s not who I remember, I don’t know her anymore. Audrey, I don’t know what to do.”

Alexandra has to bite her lip to stop herself from saying something awful. _It’s your fault. You left me. You’re the reason why I changed!_ Rage wells up, her extremities tingling with it. Alexandra wants to break something, to hurt something as much as she feels on the inside. 

“I do love her, I just don’t know how to show it.”

 _Try harder!_ Alexandra screams silently in her mind. Just when she thinks she can’t stand any more of this, Melanie says quickly, “I have to go,” then puts the phone back. Melanie slips into bed underneath her, the whole bunk shaking a little as she settles in. Soon after, Alexandra can hear her crying. Except for the train, the room is near-silent. Every detail of her mother’s distress is painfully clear - the sobs, the struggle for breath - but Alexandra’s heart remains hard. She can’t remember the last time she cried. Not because she never had a reason to, but because it was not allowed on Big Alice. The only acceptable emotions to show were anger, or triumph. The idea of being openly distressed is alien to her, and she doesn’t enjoy being around it. _Broken._

Alexandra shifts slightly, and the sobs from below abruptly cut off. For a while there is no noise. As they both lie in wait; who will concede first? Alexandra stays perfectly still. If she lets her mother know she’d heard all that, they’ll never be able to come back from it. After a while, Melanie must judge it to be safe, because her breathing eases up slightly. She doesn’t go back to crying. Alexandra refuses to relax, in case her mother loses control again - but she does not. After ten minutes Melanie’s breathing is deep and regular, and Alexandra can go to sleep too.


	8. Audrey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During a performance, Audrey's trauma catches up to her.

It’s not until a week later that Audrey feels alright enough to do a performance. Zarah and Clay had tried to talk her out of it, but she’d waved them off. _It’s one song. How hard can it be?_

Audrey had spent the week not doing anything, alternately napping in her room or wandering Third Class. After the rebel takeover Layton had granted her access to the whole train, but Audrey still feels nervous stepping outside of Third Class on her own. Especially after her capture; she was taken from near the Tail, after all. There is no danger anymore. Wilford is gone, Big Alice is under the control of the rebels. Nobody, least of all Audrey, has anything to fear from roaming the train. Logically she recognises that, but unless she is with someone else Third Class is the limit of her world right now. The Second and First Class cars, with Layton’s government and the engine at the helm, seem unreachable to her. The Tail, with Big Alice at the end? Forget about it. Audrey wants to stay as far as she can from there. After the takeover by the rebels, teams have been going in and out, scavenging parts and sundries from Big Alice. Audrey’s partly glad that Layton’s government is getting use out of it, but she doesn’t want to watch. There are far too many painful memories associated with Big Alice.

Zarah had helped Audrey get ready for the performance, but not without considerable demurring on her part. “You’ve been out of hospital just over a week. It’s not that much time.” Even so, she holds out the dress for Audrey to step into.

“Nothing will happen. It’s just a performance. One song. No more. Right?” Audrey steps into the dress and Zarah zips it up behind her. “It’s what I’ve been doing for…eight years now. Almost eight years. I know you’re worried. I love that about you, but…it’ll be fine. I promise.”

Zarah looks as if she wants to say more. Her eyebrows knit together in anxiety, but she zips up Audrey’s dress anyway. “Okay. Just don’t overextend yourself.”

When Audrey climbs the stage, she feels herself relaxing. The only place she feels truly at home is here. On the stage in front of an audience, she can forget where she is. Audrey can forget that she’s on a doomed train barreling through a frozen wasteland. Mostly. The song playing is short and simple. Easy enough to sing for someone trying to get back into it. Audrey supposes the audience can’t complain too much anyway. Who else will perform for them, if not her?

There’s a medium sized audience here tonight. Enough to fill the dance floor, but not enough that they’re packed. Some people are on the outskirts, sitting at the tables or leaning against the wall. During one of the instrumentals, Audrey takes the time to categorise who she sees there. One man makes her do a double take.

_Wilford._

His grey hair, his stubble. His strong build, slightly softened by years on a train. His clothes don’t match however - he doesn’t have his furry jacket, but the work clothes of a Third Class passenger. Probably a disguise.

 _It’s not him. It’s not him. Melanie told you he was gone…but is he? You never saw him die._ Audrey’s throat goes dry, her vision reducing to this one man.

_When you see what I’m going to do to you…everything I just did? That will be nothing._

It has to be him, returning to fulfil his promise. He’ll drag Audrey back to Big Alice - after all the effort taken to escape in the first place! - and kill her, or worse. The Wilford-lookalike is not even paying attention to her performance. He’s just sitting at one of the tables, drinking from a glass. As if he knows his mere presence is enough.

The lights go up slightly, and Audrey can get a clearer look at this man. He doesn’t look exactly like Wilford, but her mind fills in the blanks anyway. With an inaudible scraping, he pushes his chair back and stands. His light eyes lock with hers, and it is as if she has been electrocuted - 

_no no no not here not now I thought he was gone I can’t go back I can’t_

Audrey comes back to herself in her own room, in the corner farthest from the door. Her heart is pounding and it’s difficult to breathe. _Panic attack,_ whispers the therapist part of her brain. Audrey doesn’t recall how she got here - she must have fled the stage. Her legs ache, clearly protesting their treatment.

“Audrey!” comes a voice from outside the door. _Melanie,_ she thinks disconnectedly. _Must have been watching..._

“You promised me he was gone!” Audrey screams, panic tearing her mind along every fold.

“He _is_ gone,” Melanie yells from the other side of the door. “I promise. It was someone else, Audrey. Wilford’s dead.”

Audrey’s heart is going so fast she feels faint. “You’re lying to me,” she snarls, every muscle tensed so hard she might break. That would be preferable to the gut-wrenching terror she’s feeling now. “You’re lying to me. I know who I saw.”

“Please let me in. Please, Audrey…I would never lie to you.”

Melanie is putting up a convincing case, and she sounds genuinely concerned. However, Audrey cannot shake the feeling that Wilford is waiting just behind the door, ready to bust in with guards in tow. Her throat constricts, and she cannot speak.

“Audrey?” Melanie asks again, her voice shaky. “Are you still there?”

Audrey stalks around the room, back and forth, ripping off her wristbands. “How do I know he’s not out there? How do I know it’s just you?”

“He’s not here, I promise. I’d never hurt you, and I’d never put you in that situation. I’ll stay here all night if you need me. Please let me in. Please, let me help you.”

The lock is firmly shut. Melanie could find someone to pry the door open from the other side, but it would take a while. Afterwards, the door would be unusable. Audrey knows enough about train economics to understand that would be a last resort.

“Only you,” Audrey says shakily, hand on the lock. “Only you. Nobody else.”

“I promise,” Melanie replies. “Just me. I promise.”

The lock beckons, glinting. If Audrey opens it, it will be like Pandora’s box: she might unintentionally let in all manner of things. Melanie, yes, but also the other passengers, their open curiosity, their potential judgement. And of course the Wilford-lookalike.

If she doesn’t open the door now, she never will. Audrey will have to leave sometime. _You can’t brick yourself in here forever._

As soon Audrey unlocks the door it pops open, as if Melanie was leaning on it from the other side. The attic room is flooded with light briefly, a human shape moves through it, before the door is slammed shut again. “Audrey,” comes Melanie’s voice.

“Melanie,” Audrey says, her voice breaking. “Melanie,” she sobs again, and before she knows it she’s been gathered into Melanie’s arms, her face pressed up against the other woman’s leather jacket. Audrey can’t stop herself from crying; the sobs forcing themselves out like water from a dam. Soon enough her face grows hot and sticky from the tears. Melanie strokes her hair and whispers sweet reassurances to her, and this makes Audrey feel worse for some reason. As if she doesn’t deserve the attention. Eventually Audrey cries herself out, but she cannot stop shaking. Melanie helps her out of the dress, unzipping it and folding it up in the crate. Audrey lets herself be led to the couch and takes the glass of whiskey that is handed to her. Normally the waste would horrify her - it was from before the Freeze - but this is an exceptional circumstance. As Audrey drinks it the alcohol spreads its warm tendrils throughout her body, and she feels slightly better. Melanie joins her on the couch, taking her hand gently. “I’m so sorry, Audrey,” she says, her voice cracking slightly.

“Tell me how he died,” Audrey says, her ears ringing so much she can hear little else. “All of it. Everything. Tell me.”

Melanie blessedly does not ask for clarification. “We killed him at the frontline,” she says, her thumb making concentric circles on Audrey’s hand. “Layton killed him. A direct shot. All of his guards, we killed them too.”

Audrey imagines that, imagines her friends mowing down Wilford and his soldiers. It’s unrealistic, but she thinks of him dying in his furry coat. Stained with blood, dirty and disheveled, like a piece of human roadkill.

“Once they were all dead, we took them to Disposal. We waited until we passed over a canyon. Five thousand metres deep. That’s where they are now.” Melanie squeezes Audrey’s hand. “It’s dark and cold at the bottom. Nothing but sludge and ice and freezing water. They’re underneath all of that. It’s what they deserve.”

Audrey pulls Melanie closer to her, so they are only thirty centimetres apart. “You saw that? All of it?”

“I did.”

“You’re not lying to me? You aren’t just saying any of that?”

“No, of course not,” Melanie says, her hand coming up to hold Audrey’s face. “I’d never lie to you. Audrey, I…” But she does not finish the sentence.

 _I…what? What is she trying to say?_ Melanie’s green eyes are turbulent, as if betraying the storm beneath. She seems to realise the long silence she’s left, because she says, “I wouldn’t lie to you. He’s gone. He’ll never come back.”

Audrey can hear the desperation in her cracking voice when she asks, “Are you sure?” She can also hear the quiet conviction in Melanie’s voice when she says, “Yes.”


	9. Melanie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie stays with Audrey in her distress.

Audrey’s condition terrifies Mel.

The other woman is shaky, white-faced, completely incapacitated by the Wilford-lookalike. Mel knows that the man is not Wilford - he was just as surprised as she was when he learned of Audrey’s extreme reaction to his presence. In the bright lights of the hallway, Mel saw that he didn’t look that much like Wilford, not really. The man had blue eyes and grey hair, but that was it. She supposes under the twilight of the dance floor these small details were convincing enough. Audrey has calmed down somewhat from the blind panic of earlier, but she refuses to let Mel leave. “Please stay with me,” she pleads, holding onto Mel’s hand. “Please, I don’t want to be alone.”

What can Mel say to that, of course? _I can’t leave her alone. Not after everything she’s done for me._ Mel’s mind vacillates between all the plans she had for the night after the show - going back to the engine, having the evening meal with the other engineers. At least she’s not scheduled for the night shift today, or she’d have a far more difficult decision to make. There’s been many times the engineers have swapped shifts, but that was for good reasons, like illness or emergency meetings with Layton’s government. Definitely not so that she could be emotional support to Audrey. Mel squashes the guilt. There’s nothing she can do about it now anyway. Audrey lets out a sob, and Mel is brought back to the situation at hand. Audrey’s eyes are trained firmly on the door - as if Wilford himself will bust through and kill them both. When Mel met him on the frontline, he certainly looked irate enough to do so. “What are you looking at?” Mel asks, following Audrey’s gaze. When she does so, Mel sees Audrey’s eyes are firmly trained on the door.

“He’s going to come for me, he’s going to take me back - “

“It’s alright, it’s alright, he’s not taking you anywhere. You’re safe in your own room,” Mel says, wrapping her arms around Audrey’s shaking form. “Breathe, Audrey. You’re safe. With me.”

Audrey struggles briefly, relaxes, freezes again. This flip-flopping recurs twice more, her heart pounding, until the tension melts away for good.

Mel is no stranger to flashbacks. Before her daughter came back the same one would recur every week: searching the train after departure, reaching the last Tail car with no Alexandra to be found. Dread spreading its icy fingers over Mel’s heart. Audrey knew that, of course. “He’ll come for me,” Audrey whispers, but with much less conviction.

“He won’t. He’s dead and gone. Forever. He’ll never hurt you again.” _I’ll never let anyone hurt you,_ Mel thinks, but she can’t voice it. As much as she wants to, she can’t promise that. “I thought it was him,” Audrey sobs, her fingers clawing at the scar on her upper arm. “I really did. He said he’d come back and…he’d hurt me, and…" She dissolves into tears, coming undone for a second time. Mel’s arms go around her without a second thought, and she rocks Audrey as she weeps. Mel has no idea what to say; indeed, if it’s even appropriate to say anything. This room seems like a seperate dimension. Nobody can touch them here. Audrey’s skin is soft and warm, and Mel tries not to think about how the other woman’s wearing literally nothing but her underthings. Audrey’s sobs slow to shaky gasps.

“Do you want to talk about where you went?” Mel asks once Audrey calms down.

“Not really. I can’t. I’m sorry,” Audrey sniffles, wipes her face. “Can we just go to bed? I’m so tired.” She’s shaky and weak after the storm has passed - clearly the crying took a lot out of her.

“Yes, of course,” Mel says, quickly helping Audrey to her feet. The bed is neatly made. When Mel pulls back the covers, Audrey tiredly crawls underneath them. Mel moves to the couch, ready to curl up there, but the other woman stops her. “Please. Get in with me. I don’t want to sleep alone.” There’s a lot unsaid there. A pained expression flits across Audrey’s face, and Mel feels her heart twinge in response.

The mattress is springy and soft. The blankets on top of it are old, but warm anyway. _I will never get used to this bed._ Not even in her house before the Freeze was the bed this good. If Mel closes her eyes, she could almost believe she’s not on Snowpiercer - until the train hits a snag and jolts her out of the fantasy. Audrey sighs, then asks, “How will I face the others?”

“You don’t have to ‘face’ anyone. Nobody blames you.”

“But I left in the middle of a performance.” Audrey curls up on herself, burying her face in Mel’s shirt. “And I promised Zarah it would be okay.”

“Audrey, nobody minds that. They’re worried about you. Zarah’s definitely concerned for you.” Mel had seen her in the hallway earlier. Far from being judgemental, Zarah was almost in tears over Audrey. “I don’t think they’re in a position to fire you anyway.” It’s a weak attempt at humour, but it still gets a small laugh out of Audrey.

The moon slides out from behind a cloud, and a wide bar of white light appears on the floor. “Melanie,” comes Audrey’s voice from the darkness after a while. “What just happened…you’re not going to tell anyone. Right?”

“No. Of course not. But Audrey, nobody will judge - “

“It’s not that.” Audrey cuts her off, voice breaking. “Please. I told Zarah and the others it would be okay. I don’t want them to worry. Please, Melanie, don’t tell them what happened.”

Considering Zarah’s state outside earlier, Mel thinks that ship has sailed, but she won’t say that when Audrey is this upset. “No. I won’t. I won’t, Audrey, I promise.”

Audrey says nothing, but Mel can hear her breathing losing its strained quality, as if she’s relaxing. The mattress squeaks as Audrey shifts closer, her whole body pressed up against Mel’s. The other woman is warm and soft against her - how long has it been since she had this? How long has it been since Mel did this regularly? Despite the distressing circumstances that led her to this room and Audrey, Mel feels hopeful. Hopeful at the possibility that they’re becoming something more. Maybe someday - if there is a someday - she will be able to tell Audrey this.

Audrey snuffles, half asleep. “Go to sleep,” Mel says, stroking Audrey’s hair. “I’m here. You’re safe with me.”


	10. Alexandra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexandra's emotions spill over.

After what Alexandra heard from Melanie on the phone, her desire to do what Audrey told her drops to zero. She feels briefly guilty for shirking Audrey’s advice to talk to her mother, but it goes away quickly. Melanie clearly doesn’t know Alexandra heard her confession to Audrey. Alexandra’s rostered for the morning shift with her, and it’s just as awkward as she expected. Alexandra works on the radio while Melanie sits at the control desk. It is bright daytime outside, and the sun comes streaming in the front window and plays off of the metal switches on the control desk.

“Did you fix the radio earlier?” Melanie asks.

“Yeah.”

“Did it go alright?”

“Yeah, it did.”

Silence, then: “Is everything alright, Alexandra?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“Are you sure? You’re acting strangely. Is something wrong?”

Alexandra turns around in her chair to look at Melanie. She’s fully engrossed in whatever she’s doing at the control desk - probably either switching fuel lines or disconnecting batteries. Not even paying attention to her daughter. _Go talk to her. Be patient._

“Why are you so awkward around me?” Alexandra says, neutrally. “I thought you were happy to have me back. You always act like you don’t want me around.”

“What?” Melanie looks up. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Alexandra turns off the radio, walks up to the control desk to be eye to eye with her mother. “You say you love me and all that, but you don’t really act like it.”

“But I do love you,” Melanie says quizzically. Her green eyes darken slightly. “Always. Of course I want you around, you’re my daughter.”

“Do you really?” Alexandra folds her arms. Not just to look physically imposing, but also so she doesn’t take a swing at her mother. With Audrey’s help she’s gotten better at squelching her violent impulses, but Alexandra doesn’t completely trust herself not to do something she might regret. “You’re always spending time with Audrey. You never know what to say. It’s like you’re scared of me.”

“Alexandra, where is this coming from?” Melanie sounds uneasy now. She bites her lip slightly, taps one finger on the control desk. “What is going on? What do you want me to do?” Her body angles slightly away from Alexandra, as if she wants to leave this situation. _Your mother coped with her loss by avoiding it…_

“I want you to try harder. Why are you so scared of me? What have I done to you? You’re the one who left me, _Melanie,_ ” Alexandra snarls, dragging out the last word. Her mother will be hurt by that, but she can’t think about it now. “Now I have to listen to you whine about how you don’t know me anymore - yes, I heard all of that! I’m sick of having to cut around your feelings, as if- as if it’s something you couldn’t control. It’s your fault, all of it!”

Melanie shakes her head, tears already starting to fall. She just sits there unable to speak, unable to put forth any defence for herself. This only serves to enrage Alexandra more.

“Here’s the thing: I don’t even think you wanted this, not from the beginning. You don’t like being reminded of what you did, you’d prefer I really was dead so you could move on from this.”

“But I did want you back. So badly.” Melanie takes Alexandra’s hand, and her skin crawls. “None of that’s true, Alexandra, I love you and I wanted you with me this whole time. The past seven years, I…please, I’m so scared, I…I just don’t want to lose you again.”

Alexandra looks down at her mother’s tear streaked face, contorted in desperation. She feels disgust, for Melanie’s wretched self-centredness. She yanks her hand back, and her mother recoils. It’s just as well. A year ago, Alexandra would have slapped her.

“You only think about yourself,” Alexandra snaps. She knows she’s digging herself into a hole of epic proportions, but it feels so good to finally let this out somewhere that’s not the Nightcar. “It’s never about me, is it? It’s always you. How do you think I felt, watching this train leave, knowing your work was always more important to you than me? Watching the guards shoot grandma and grandpa?” She has never revealed that last part to anyone, not even Audrey. Melanie’s face drains of colour. Alexandra knows she has gone too far, but she can’t stop now. “Spending seven years on that hunk of junk with Wilford? Do you even care about me that much?”

“Yes, I do,” Melanie says weakly. “Of course I do, Allie, please…”

In another less emotionally charged time, Alexandra might have felt sympathy, but now all she feels is rage. Her mind keeps backing up against _Allie_ , over and over. Soon it’s too much for her to take, and it spills out like lava. “Don’t fucking call me that. Ever again. Don’t say _that,_ don’t say it like nothing has changed,” Alexandra spits the words out, as venomously as possible. She takes a shaky breath, stalks around the engine room. “Stop pretending! I’m not her anymore, you left Allie to freeze. You just want me neatly slotted back into your perfect engineer life. File down the sharp edges, act like everything didn’t happen.” She can feel her extremities tingling. “Fuck, why are you so selfish? Wilford was bad, but he didn’t pretend to care about me. If I had known how this was how you’d be like, I would’ve just stayed on Big Alice.” 

Melanie visibly flinches at that statement. Alexandra takes one step back, stuffs her fists in her pockets. She’s crossed the line now; even if they reconciled she’ll never be able to take that back. Her ears are ringing, and she might throw up. The subtrain materialises in her mind. Alexandra wants so much to get away, anywhere far from her mother and all the terrible thoughts she brings. So she turns, and she runs.

The engine doors part for her with a whoosh. She finds the hatch down the hall marked **subtrain access** , flings it open, her feet finding the ladder rungs by instinct. Slamming the door behind her, Alexandra jumps the last metre, keeps running. Twenty cars have passed before she runs out of breath and has to stop. The access panel in the ceiling says **First Class arboretum**. Alexandra likes the arboretum - all the plants in vivid shades of green, the close humidity, the clean scent of nature. She considers going up there, but there will almost certainly be people around, and Alexandra does not want to explain her harried state to anyone. The gap between the nearest piston and the wall is just large enough for one person. Alexandra squeezes herself into it, facing towards the engine. This spot is dangerous. If her sleeve gets caught in the piston, she might lose her hand.

Alexandra does not cry. Wilford had many things to say about it when she did. _Stop crying. Crying is weak. We’re here because we are ruthless. Weaklings belong in the ice. Is that where you want to be, Alexandra?_ She wonders if she’s damaged beyond repair. Seventeen-year olds should be able to cry. _Broken._

Alexandra closes her eyes against Wilford, forces her mind away from him. _Wilford’s dead. He’s gone. He’s at the bottom of a canyon. I never have to do anything he says again._ His face disappears, is replaced by Melanie’s. Weak, pale, crushed. Alexandra’s stomach twists - not only did she cruelly reject her mother’s affection, she threw in the most traumatic thing she could think of to make sure it really stung. Despite that, Alexandra feels oddly free, that it’s finally out there and she cannot take it back. There will be no more secrets between them. What was the cost though? Melanie’s sanity, and their relationship? _We’ve burnt our bridges._ That was Wilford’s saying. Alexandra thinks she didn’t so much burn the bridge but send a missile into it.

A flashlight beam jiggles around far up the train. Alexandra doesn’t move. From her current position she is invisible. She can see the light, but not who is carrying it.

“Alexandra!” comes a faint echoing voice. It is distinctly male, and has the light timbre of Javi’s American accent. Of all the people she thought would follow her down here, Javi is dead last on that list. Alexandra likes him, considers him a friend. Even so, she does not want to speak to him, or anyone from the engine.

“Alexandra!” he calls again, much closer at hand. Javi’s footsteps pick up, and he crosses the threshold into the arboretum car. “Alexandra. There you are. I’ve been looking for you. Get out of there, you’ll hurt yourself.” Javi flops down onto the pipe next to her, clicks the flashlight off. “What’s going on? Why are you down here?”

Alexandra shifts guiltily, not sure what to say. How much does he already know? “Um…I had a…disagreement, I guess…with Melanie.”

If Javi notices Alexandra using her mother’s given name, he doesn’t let on. “A disagreement, huh? What about?”

Alexandra runs through all the things she’s just said as if rewinding a tape. The weight of everything that’s just happened presses in. “I don’t know. It’s a long story.”

“Well, Melanie seemed - ”

“I don’t want to hear about my mother,” Alexandra says, refusing to look at Javi. “If I did, I’d go back.”

“Alright. I won’t say anything, then.” Javi’s hair looks even frizzier than normal, and his glasses are askew. Alexandra wonders what that might mean, but then again he always looks some level of dishevelled. “I just came to see if you were okay.”

Anger spurts up, and Alexandra sneers, “What do you think?”

“Sorry, I didn’t know what was going on,” Javi says quickly, putting his hands up. “I saw you go down the hatch and thought I’d follow you. You looked pretty upset.”

Alexandra smiles just a little bit at Javi’s care. “Thanks.”

“Well, I brought you something anyway. Here.” Javi holds out a packet of biscuits. She takes it from him, reads the back. “I remember this. How do you still have these? They expired seven years ago.”

“I saved them back when we departed. Don’t worry, they last forever if you keep the pack sealed. Here, open them.” Javi does so. Alexandra takes one, bites into it, and the taste of mint floods her mouth.

“These are good.”

“They should be. It’s the third to last packet on Earth, you know.” Alexandra and Javi finish the biscuits, having three each.

“I don’t want to go back,” Alexandra says as Javi scrunches up the trash and stuffs it in his pocket. “I don’t want to see my mother. After what I said.”

“Can’t help you there. You gotta make that choice yourself.”

“Thanks for the help,” Alexandra sighs, stretching out on the pipe. “I can’t stay down here forever.”

“You could just go back,” Javi says, looking down at her. “We’re on a train. You’ll have to see her sometime. You know, back in my day we just moved countries when this happened.” Alexandra rolls her eyes. “I mean it. Go back, bite the bullet. Have a conversation. Doesn’t sound you’ve been doing that at all.” Javi must read something in her face, because his expression softens. “I get what you’re feeling, a little bit. But I think you should maybe talk to your mother about it properly. Of course, what do I know?” he asks, taking a swig from his chipped Wilford mug.

 _Can’t get away from that guy._ “Fine. If I must. But not now. I’ll go to Third Class for a week. Think about it for a while.”

“Okay.” Javi wipes his glasses on his shirt. “If you want, I’ll tell the others to give you some space. Is that alright?”

“Thanks. I won’t be too long. I’ll come back sometime. I just need space.”

Javi smiles. “I know you will. But even if you want to come back tonight, you can. Don’t stay away just because of any old reason. And if you want to call, you know where to find me.”


	11. Melanie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The immediate aftermath of Alexandra's confession, as experienced by Melanie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for minor mention of suicide.
> 
> One of the most difficult aspects of writing this fic (aside from Mel and Audrey's dynamic of course :P) was balancing Mel and Alexandra's competing trauma against each other. Mel needs time to heal from her trauma, but not at the expense of her relationship with her daughter. Alexandra wants her mother to acknowledge her, but Mel needs to work through a lot before that can happen properly. Am I doing it correctly? Who knows?

Mel doesn’t know how much time has passed when the doors to the engine open again. It’s probably been only twenty minutes, but it felt like eternity. Striding through the door is not Alexandra, however, but Bennett, holding a coffee cup. “Did something happen?” he asks without preamble. “Wait. Where’s Alexandra? Isn’t she on shift right now?”

The gravity of the situation crushes Mel like a ton of bricks, and her throat constricts. How can she even begin to explain what just happened? “She left. I don’t know where she went.”

Bennett cocks his head slightly, his face confused. “Left? Left why?”

“We had a…an argument.” _‘Argument’ would be inaccurate,_ Mel thinks. _There wasn’t any sort of back-and-forth._ “Alexandra said a lot of things.”

“About what?” Bennett asks.

“That I was pushing her away. And that I was selfish.” Mel swallows. The engine room looks shimmery and impermanent, as if it will disappear. “She was so angry. And so hurt. Now she’s gone, I don’t know where she went.”

Bennett takes her hand gently. Rage spurts up, and she flings his arm away. “Jesus, Mel,” he says, shuffling a little away from her.

“I don’t deserve any of this,” Mel chokes out. “I don’t deserve to be comforted, not- not when my daughter is somewhere on this train, I don’t know, tearing herself up inside for something I did - “

“Mel - “

“And she said so many things, but they were all right! All of them, and I - “ Mel has to stop, take a breath. She can barely get the next words out. “I know I caused it, but Ben, I don’t…I don’t know what to do.”

Bennett looks empathetic, but Mel can also see he’s just as lost as she is.

“I don’t want to lose her again, but…” Mel can see Bennett’s swipe card dangling from the lanyard around his neck. _Alexandra has one…right?_ The words **top level security clearance** stand out to her - bold, red and unforgiving like blood. Mel knows that that card can open any door in the train. She imagines the doors to the outside opening, the ice encroaching in. Alexandra throwing herself out -

_No. No. She wouldn’t do that. She’s strong. She wouldn’t…_

Could she say that, though? Did Mel know enough about Alexandra to say that with certainty? After spending seven years with Wilford, and being rejected by Mel twice, Alexandra might not see the point in living any longer. Certainly after departure, Mel considered suicide several times.

“And she had to see my parents die! And she didn’t say anything…for a year! All this time I didn’t know…I didn’t know.” 

The doors to the engine room open a third time, and it’s Javi who walks through them now.

“Where the hell have you been?” Bennett asks, turning around fully to look at him.

“I was in the subtrain,” Javi says, taking a heavy seat in the radio chair. “I went to see Alexandra.”

“You saw her? Where did she go? What did she say?” Panic has made her shrill, and Mel thinks she really should control herself. “Javi, tell me or I’ll throw you out this train myself!”

“She wants space.”

“And you just let her go? Javi, she could be anywhere on the train! Out there doing who knows what, maybe even going outside - ”

Javi grabs her wrists gently and extricates himself from her grasp. “Alexandra wouldn’t do that. She just wanted some time alone to think.”

Mel trusts Javi’s advice, his thoughts, and his feelings. Rationally, she knows that Javi has no reason to lie, and that her daughter trusts him implicitly. Alexandra has no reason to lie to him specifically. However, Mel is hurting and scared, and her rational mind is struggling futilely for eminence. _Just leave,_ whispers the little voice at the back of her mind. _You’re useless. Even if you find her, what will you do? Just leave…you’ve already made a mess of things._

“It’s hard,” says Bennett eventually, with uncharacteristic sympathy, “but if Alexandra’s really that upset, maybe you should just leave her be for a while.”

Mel can imagine their judgement, their disgust at her self-centredness - _fuck, why are you so selfish?_ \- and she realises she doesn’t want anyone to see her, not right now. Choking back a sob, Mel pushes past the other engineers and shuts herself in the bunk room. Her legs feel weak, and she slides down, slumped against the door. Mel wants to disappear, be anywhere else other than here, but since that’s not possible she goes for the next option: she stuffs herself into the corner of the bunk room and cries. Mel doesn’t even try to be quiet. Bennett and Javi will almost certainly be able to hear her distress, but she can’t find it in herself to care. The sobs come so hard and fast she feels like a tree being buffeted around in a swirling tornado. Mel hates crying - the physical effects aside, she despises how out of control she feels, as if some other force has taken over her body. More than anything, she hates crying alone. Most other times she had Audrey or Bennett or even Javi occasionally to hold her until the storm passed - but she won’t ask for that, not this time.

After a while, the sobs subside enough that Mel can catch her breath. Her eyes hurt and her whole body feels uncomfortably hot. She looks up from her place on the floor, and sees the fuzzy pink blanket on Alexandra’s bed. It’s too hard to see from here, but Mel knows it has her name monogrammed on the corner in tiny letters. It had been almost coincidence that was here now. Before departure, her daughter was obsessive about making sure they took it with them. “Mommy, we can’t forget the blanket. I can’t sleep without it.” Alexandra had been going on about it for weeks, much more than she normally would. Mel wanted to brush it off. However, her daughter’s worry unnerved her, so she’d made space in one of her priority crates for the blanket. After it had been vac-sealed, it really didn’t take up that much room. Once Mel’d done that, Alexandra was reassured, and she didn’t bring it up again.

Months later, after Snowpiercer departed (Alexandra-less) Mel found the blanket stuffed in a drawer. Underneath the couch in the engineer’s cabin. Somewhere she’d never think to look. She assumed Bennett or Javi had opened a crate of hers and put away the contents wherever they could find space. The vacuum bag was grey, opaque, unlabelled. Mel did not recall what was in it. Old clothes, potentially. She broke the seal. Thrust a hand inside questingly. Her fingers found something soft and fuzzy, and when Mel pulled it out the faded pink colour left no question as to what it could be. Bennett found Mel thirty minutes later, and she’d cried for hours in his arms.

Despite her best efforts, Mel could not bring herself to get rid of the blanket. She would stand over the disposal chute, ready to toss it in, but then her daughter’s face would swim up in her mind’s eye. As if Alexandra was standing right in front of her, judging her decision. Mel hated herself for considering it in the first place, but she could hardly stand to look at the thing. _Why did you bother saving this? You couldn’t even save Alexandra._ Mel flip-flopped on what to do with it. She couldn’t get rid of it, but it was incendiary enough on its own. Mel ended up stuffing the blanket into one of the drawers in her bunk, at the very back. She brought it out five or six times in as many years. The last time was when the cows died - she’d come back to the engine, exhausted and heartsick, and ended up falling asleep with it. The blanket smelled like Alexandra, and Mel had slept without nightmares for the first time in years.

Now the blanket was on Alexandra’s bunk, returned to its rightful owner. If the rightful owner ever came back. Mel walks to the bunk on unsteady feet, pulls it off, curls up on the tiny couch. It no longer smells like nine-year-old Alexandra, but the seventeen-year-old version. Engine oil, train shampoo, and something else she can’t place. 

Mel feels paralysing inadequacy winding itself around her heart. What can she do now? How can she even begin to try and fix this, when Alexandra’s rage had been such a hot, unquenchable force? _Your fault,_ hisses the ugly little voice in Mel’s head. _It’s your fault she’s gone…you couldn’t even pull yourself together after she’d been gone for seven years. After you left her._

_It’s not like that,_ Mel thinks desperately. _It’s not like that, not anymore. It’s not. It’s not._ Breathing raggedly, she rubs her chest, trying to slow her racing heart. What the hell can she do?

Mel can feel panic slowly bleeding its way through her body. The Nightcar, and the room above it, materialises in her mind. She’s not got the faintest idea where to start with this, but Audrey is the only person she knows who might be able to help.


	12. Audrey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are we all feeling about the new S2 trailer? Excited??? I can't wait :D

Audrey hasn’t seen Alexandra for a week. The girl doesn’t seek her out, and she doesn’t hear anything from the engine. Zarah doesn’t comment on it, but Audrey can tell she notices the conspicuous lack of news. Audrey does a couple of shows, which feel positively boring after the frenzy that was the first one. After the first performance, she hasn’t seen Melanie either. Audrey wonders if Alexandra has talked to her mother yet. If nothing else, Melanie would definitely have mentioned it.

Audrey has two nights off a week now, where she has no performances, no experiences, no responsibilities of any kind. Twice a week, she can spend four hours in the Nightcar doing nothing then another nine in her own bed. Layton of all people had suggested it, and while she felt bad accepting his offer, she was glad for it now. The ability to shut the door on the rest of the train and relax for hours was golden. During these times she either goes to bed early or reads. There’s not much else to do in her attic room. It’s only recently she’s gotten back into reading. Audrey has several books from pre-Freeze times; most of them trashy romance novels from bargain bin sales. All of them virtually the same - a motley cast of characters with their tiny, inconsequential, asinine problems. Audrey couldn’t read them for a long time after departure - she found herself longing for the simple conflicts they had, solvable within two hundred pages. How could she not, when all the problems on the train were so existentially terrifying? Often she wished she was one of the female heroines from the books. If only Audrey’s biggest problem was that a guy wouldn’t text her back, and not that her Third Class friends were dying in droves from preventable diseases. It made Audrey so sad she couldn’t bear to look at the books after a while, so she stuffed them in a drawer under the couch. 

Sometimes Audrey wonders exactly why she saved those ones specifically. Audrey knows that somewhere in her house there are hundreds of books buried under a thick layer of snow. Psychology books, self-help books, books on various art movements, romance novels, political autobiographies. Alas, she had a strict quota for what she could bring on the train, and by and large the romance novels came out the clear winner. Why, exactly? Pre-departure Audrey was not in the best headspace. Going from accepting her cold death to being offered a place on the train, having to condense her life into three suitcases in only a week. Not much she can do about it anymore, unless the earth comes back alive and she can go home. Now Audrey can read those books and enjoy their vapid little conflicts without any emotional distress on her part, but there’ll always be a part of her that is sad for the life she used to have.

It’s six o’clock now, and from this hour onward until seven the next morning Audrey has nowhere to be. It’s warm and cozy up in her attic room. There’s a flask of the Nightcar alcohol waiting for her, as well as one of her novels - ironically, a sordid romance between two people on a scenic train. Not for very long, however - someone knocks on the door, disturbing the peace. Audrey jumps so hard she spills some of the alcohol on herself. _Just great._ She puts the glass down on the crate, crosses the room to the door. The intrusion annoys her; the others know not to disturb her during her night off. _It could be Melanie,_ she thinks, but she summarily discards that idea as well - Melanie would call ahead if she was coming. Audrey slides the lock to and opens the door. The only person standing on the landing is a certain dark-haired engineer.

* * *

Audrey has no idea what to say; indeed she doesn’t even know what’s going on. _So much for having a conversation about it._

“Audrey, did you tell her to do this?” Melanie doesn’t sound angry, she sounds desperate. “She was so angry.”

“I did tell her to communicate, but not like this.” Audrey takes Melanie’s hand, who is still struggling to breathe through her panic. “Sit down on the couch and we’ll talk about it.” Melanie follows her meekly, like a small child. 

“So what happened?” Audrey asks. She wonders exactly what could have happened that Melanie would be this distressed. Short of Alexandra perhaps physically assaulting her mother, not much.

“We were in the engine room,” Melanie says shakily, “Alexandra was on the radio and I was at the controls. She didn’t say much.” She takes a deep breath, as if steeling herself for the next part of the story. “I asked her if something was wrong, and…she got so angry. She said things…so many things.”

“Such as?” Audrey has a good idea of what these things might be, but she wants to hear it from Melanie herself.

“She said I was selfish, and that I was pushing her away. I don’t know, it just kept coming. I couldn’t say anything at all. It sounded like…it sounded like she wanted to say it for a while.”

Audrey just nods. There’s no sense in revealing to Melanie how much she knows already.

“And she said she had to see my parents die! And she didn’t say anything…for a year.” Melanie drags in a pained breath, then asks, “Did you know about that?”

Audrey’s heart skitters in alarm. She did not know about it, and she aches in sympathy for Alexandra who had to have been sitting on that for close to eight years now. “No, I didn’t. She never told me.” The words of Audrey’s former mentor slides into her mind: _never assume you know all the facts about a patient._ Audrey sees relief in Melanie’s eyes. Relief that she was not the only one Alexandra hid that revelation from.

“I left her behind to that…I wanted to make things better this time around, but I didn’t! Alexandra was right! Everything she said…I want to fix what I did, but Audrey, I don’t know how.” The raw despair and hopelessness in Melanie’s voice makes Audrey want to cry herself. Even worse is the realisation that she doesn’t know how to help Melanie, at all. For the first time in years, she is completely at a loss. Audrey has to say something though, to fill the growing silence before Melanie loses it completely.

“Where is Alexandra now?”

Melanie’s voice comes haltingly. “She went…I don’t know where. Down into the subtrain. Alexandra could be in Big Alice, for all I know. She said she wanted space.”

Audrey knows that like herself, Alexandra will not go back to her former home. There are too many bad memories there. In all likelihood she was in a Third Class container somewhere. “Well then. You can’t go after her.”

Melanie’s eyes flame, and just for a second Audrey sees the tyrannous head of hospitality behind them. “If you’re presuming to tell me what to do with my own daughter - ”

“Do you want my advice or not?”

Melanie’s anger dies like a candle going out. “I’m sorry. But…what if she doesn’t come back at all?”

“Melanie, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but…you have to let Alexandra come back in her own time. Or not at all, if that’s what she wants. You’ve been struggling yourself, but you hurt her badly, and Alexandra has no obligation to give you a second chance. People you’ve hurt, knowingly or not, don’t have to forgive you.” She’s trying hard to stay calm, but Audrey must have hit a nerve, because Melanie’s eyes are welling up with tears agin. Audrey feels a shot of guilt. Was it really necessary to say all that? It is true, but she wonders if she just added more fuel to the fire. Audrey sighs. “I shouldn’t have said - “

“No, you’re right.” Melanie shifts on the couch, looking resolutely at the floor. She bites her lip nervously. Audrey can _see_ the cogs turning in Melanie’s head, grinding along like a water wheel.

“What are you thinking?” she asks gently. Melanie stays silent, and Audrey curses in her head. She might have blown it being sanctimonious earlier. Melanie came looking for comfort, and instead got a lecture. _Nice going, therapist of the year._ “Listen, I’m sorry for what I said. You’re already struggling, you didn’t need me to compound it. I won’t start up with that again, I promise…but please don’t shut down. Please tell me what’s going on in your head. I won’t say anything. You can just talk.”

“I know what I did.” Melanie sits on the far end of the couch, still refusing to meet Audrey’s eye. “I know I hurt her, but…I just want her back.” She picks obsessively at a hangnail. “This feels wrong.”

“How so?”

“Coming here. Alexandra’s out there somewhere. Hurt and angry because of me. I should be looking for her, not being here…trying to make myself feel better for what I did.”

“Why are you here, then?”

“I feel like shit. I don’t know how to fix this. Or even if it can be fixed. I just want someone to tell me what to do…someone to hold me and tell me it’s going to be okay.” Audrey reaches out a hand to her, and Melanie freezes but doesn’t move away.

“So let me in,” Audrey says. “Let me be there for you.”

“I’m just being selfish.” Melanie lets out a half-sob. “Exactly what she said I was.”

Audrey feels pity knifing her in the ribs, for both of them. Two broken people, jagged edges slicing each other. “You’re allowed to feel how you’re feeling…and you’re allowed to want someone. Okay?”

Melanie half stands up off the couch as if she hasn’t heard. “I’m going after her.”

Audrey pulls her back gently. “Don’t. Let her have space. It’s the right thing to do.”

“I want to find her,” Melanie sobs. “I want her back…please, I’ll do anything, I just don’t want to lose her again.” Audrey reaches out to her again, and this time she comes willingly. Melanie is small and warm against her, like a child. She expects Melanie to weep, or some other similar release of emotion, but maybe she’d cried herself out earlier. “I’m not used to letting people close. I don’t like being vulnerable, not since - “ Melanie doesn’t clarify, but Audrey fills in the blank anyway. “ - but I want to, with you.”

Audrey feels sympathy for Melanie, but also slightly proud; as if she’s seeing a chink in Melanie’s armour. It’s a tiny, fragile moment - one that might dissolve if Audrey does not tread carefully.

“You can always be vulnerable with me. But there’s no rush. This is a process.”

“I just…” Melanie buries her face in Audrey’s shirt, “I don’t want to lose Alexandra again. The first time, I wanted to die. I can’t handle it again.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. But whatever happens, I’ll be there to help you through it. Okay?” That’s all that Audrey can say, a fervent promise released into the tense air of the attic room. Will it be enough? Maybe not, but she can only hope that her vow will hold everything together until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, there is a lot of angst here. Also, I shot myself in the foot HARD not keeping a proper timeline for this fic. Trying to keep all three characters straight is difficult, y'all :P


	13. Alexandra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexandra spends time in Third Class, but her actions catch up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for murder/death.

_Wilford barks, “Take the girl.” One of the guards moves faster than Alexandra or her grandparents can react, snatches her up from the ground. Grandma and Grandpa reach for her, but they are blocked by two other soldiers._

_“Where are you taking her?” Grandpa asks._

_“That’s no longer your concern,” Wilford snaps. He withdraws something silver and shiny, which glints in the lights of the train yard. Alexandra vaguely recognises the shape, having seen it in movies. Two shots come in rapid succession, the noise echoing across the platform. Both her grandparents collapse heavily to the ground, the snow eddying out around them. Alexandra screams, tries to get out of the guard’s grasp, but she could be trying to fight a stone statue for all the good it did. The guard climbs up with her into this new train. Alexandra shrinks from it, from the cold grey walls and the endless crowd of soldiers. All of them exactly the same, hard-faced and unforgiving._

_Wilford is still standing in the yard, holstering his gun. The yard is quiet and empty. There is nobody else around, except for the faint shouts of people at the fence far away. Wilford trots the last few metres to the train, accepts the offer of a guard who helps him aboard._

_“It’s just you and me, isn’t it?” Wilford comes closer. He does not touch her, but Alexandra still feels his measured gaze raking over her like a reptile. “Don’t worry. We’ll get our revenge, Alexandra. Both of us.”_

_The door trundles shut, and the train begins to move. Alexandra will never forget the last thing she saw before the door closed: her grandparents bleeding out, dead in the snow._

* * *

Alexandra stays in LJ’s container for a week, alternatively walking the train and staying inside. Nobody comes looking for her, not Melanie, or the other engineers, or Audrey. LJ and Oz, used to Alexandra’s whims, leave her alone. The days pass in relative peace, Alexandra relaxed and unbothered, until Thursday.

“Alexandra Cavill!” comes a voice from far below. “A message for Alexandra Cavill!”

“You should go see who it is,” LJ says, pushing aside the dingy shower curtain that passes for a door in their container. “It might be important.”

“Don’t want to,” Alexandra says, turning away from her. “It’s probably just my mother.” LJ doesn’t know exactly what brought Alexandra here, and she has no desire to recount it for the older girl.

“Even more reason to see what’s up. Go on, go down there.” LJ folds her arms. “Seriously, I wish my mom was still alive to annoy me. Get out before I drag you there myself.”

Alexandra opens her mouth to protest again, but LJ’s expression, a mix of regret and sadness, stops her. “Alright. Fine. I’ll go.” She stands, edges past the other girl. “I’ll be back.”

Alexandra doesn’t even have to announce herself. The messenger - who turns out to be a notary from First Class - catches sight of her immediately. “It’s a letter from the engineers. Addressed to you personally.” The notary passes it along, and Alexandra sees it’s the good-quality, creamy engine paper. The letter is folded into a triangle. She flattens it on her leg and reads it.

_Alexandra,_

_First: if you’re feeling guilty about what you said, don’t. You were right about all of it, everything you said. I have failed you as a parent. I haven’t been treating you the way you deserve, at all. You’re right, I was scared. Scared that you would be taken from me again. The first time, I thought I was going to die from the pain. I had terrible dreams every night. All I wanted was to throw myself out into the cold to join you. I kept loving you even when I thought you were gone forever. When you came back, I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was terrified it was too good to be true. I wouldn’t have been able to deal with that a second time, so I kept you at arm’s length. I thought I was protecting myself, but I see now I was driving you away with my selfishness. You’ve changed, and you’re not the girl I left behind eight years ago, but none of that is your fault, and I should never have punished you for it. I know that hurt you a great deal, and I regret that so much. Alexandra, you’re always loved and you’re always wanted, and I am so, so sorry that my actions made you doubt that. I’m sorry for forgetting who mattered the most in all of this: you. If you want, we can start over, on your terms this time. You deserve a mother who’ll put you first for once, and I want to try and be that - but if you don’t want to come back, for any reason, I understand. I just want you to be happy, and if that doesn’t include me, I’ll accept it._

_I love you,  
Melanie_

There are tear stains at the bottom of the page. Alexandra imagines Melanie writing this letter, knowing there was a possibility her daughter would never want anything to do with her again. Even giving her permission to do it. Alexandra expects to feel anger, despair, anything else, but all she feels is emptiness.

The crowd in the train car grows larger, voices overlapping, other people brushing up against her. Alexandra doesn’t notice. She scrunches the letter up in her fist. Opens her hand, reads the letter again, once, twice, three times. What can she do? Who can she ask for help? _People never change, Alexandra. I don’t know what you’re hoping to achieve by going after her. What, do you think Melanie’ll suddenly revamp her personality just because you came back? She was selfish then, and she’ll be selfish now. Just you see._ Wilford again, just before she’d gone back to Melanie. Was her mother telling the truth? Would she really try and change? Or was this all just lip service? Alexandra doesn’t think she could handle another rejection.

“Alexandra, there you are.” LJ comes down the stairs to meet her, footsteps ringing out against the metal steps. “So who’s the note from?” She sounds conspiratorial, like a high schooler. Alexandra only knows LJ as the traumatised former First Class orphan, but sometimes her old personality comes out.

“My mother.”

“Oh yeah? What’s it say?” LJ says this so matter-of-factly, as if she expects to be told the answer. “Come on, I know you wanna tell me.”

LJ annoys Alexandra at the best of times, but right now the older girl’s downright grating. Alexandra sighs. “It’s private.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” LJ’s eyes lose their mischievous glint. “Are you going back to the engine, or are you coming home? I can make something to eat. I’ve been getting better at the noodles.”

Where can Alexandra go? She doesn’t belong in Third Class, with LJ and Oz and their simple shipping container life. She’s not one of them, and she never will be. But what about the engine? How can she go back there? Melanie seems to be genuinely remorseful, but Alexandra can’t take back what she said.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.” Alexandra turns back to LJ. “Can I just come back for a little while?”

“Sure,” LJ says, quirking a smile. “I think you’re going to like the noodles. They finally got wheat up and going again! After nearly a year.”

Alexandra didn’t know that, and she feels some vague anticipation. Recently, the passengers’d been eating corn noodles, which tasted so much like wall cladding everyone made excuses not to eat them. Wheat was something to be truly excited about. It’s only half an hour later when Alexandra is seated at LJ’s plastic trestle table with a bowl of noodles in front of her that she feels marginally better. They taste good - really good. She’s halfway through when she thinks to stop.

“I don’t want to go back,” Alexandra says eventually without preamble. “I had a fight with my mother.”

“Haven’t we all,” says LJ, not turning around.

“It’s not that simple,” Alexandra snaps, stabbing her fork into the noodles. “I said things. A lot of things. But she’s the one apologising.”

“I’m assuming something went down.”

‘Went down’, another LJ-ism. Wilford was obsessed with proper speech; Alexandra can speak as eloquently as a professor, but has no idea how to talk to kids her own age. “If that’s how you want to call it. I just don’t know whether she’s being genuine. She could just be making a play to get me back in the engine.” _What if nothing changes?_ is the unspoken question, but Alexandra will not trust that to LJ.

“There’s only one way to find out. Just go up there, see what’s up, and if it doesn’t work out come back.”

“I just don’t know what to do,” says Alexandra eventually. “I want to go back to the engine, but I don’t want to see my mother again.”

“Didn’t you say she apologised?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s gonna be awkward.” Alexandra stuffs another forkful of noodles in her mouth. “You can’t come back from what I said.”

“You only get one mom,” LJ says, getting more noodles from the container on the bench. Alexandra can’t see her face, but she can hear the sadness in the older girl’s voice.

“You only get one daughter, but Melanie doesn’t seem to believe that.” That statement sounds so poisonous, even to Alexandra, that she finds herself wishing she could take it back.

“I’m going to tell you something,” LJ says flatly, not turning around. “One time, before you and Wilford came on Snowpiercer, I got someone to sneak me into the engine. I went off on my own and snooped through your cabin. I took a photo of you and Melanie from inside your closet. I brought it out later when your mom was arrested.”

Alexandra goes tense - she has never heard this story from LJ herself. Melanie, Bennett, Audrey, even Zarah have all told her their own version of events. The excessive retelling painted LJ as a conniving, psychopathic movie-villain in Alexandra’s mind. However, she knows LJ has been crushed down to a fraction of her former self; she is completely and utterly harmless. There is nothing to fear from her anymore. However, Alexandra doesn’t know how to feel about LJ’s side of the story - is she going to try and justify what she did?

“I taunted her with that photo. There was that Jackboot army there. She still tried to come at me.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“I mean Melanie was okay with getting shot for a piece of paper that happened to have you on it.”

“It’s just a piece of paper. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“You’re missing the point,” LJ says, turning around and slamming her bowl of noodles on the trestle table. “Your mom was so desperate to hold onto anything of you she was willing to die for it. For a photo. Seems kinda stupid to me.”

Alexandra chooses to ignore the last sentence. “I get it.”

“My mom wouldn’t have done something like that. She wouldn’t have let her emotions get to her like that.”

Alexandra has heard very little about the older Lilah Folger; LJ finds it too painful to talk about often, and everyone else hated her. “So you think Melanie really does care?”

“Yeah. She does. She wanted to gouge my eyes out. You really should have seen her that day. I’m lucky the Jackboots were around. If not, my eyeballs would have ended up under her nails.”

LJ is clearly trying to shock Alexandra with that description, but she’s too hardened to be disgusted by it. Not since Wilford made her watch a torture session at thirteen. “Fine. If you’re the one saying it.”

“So are you going back or what?” LJ asks through a mouthful of noodles.

“I guess so. Where else can I go?”

Alexandra reads the letter again. _I just want you to be happy, and if that doesn’t include me, I’ll accept it._ It sounds genuinely remorseful, but is it really? Anyone can fake writing an emotional letter, and she would not put it past her mother to do so. Then again, if she doesn’t go back at least once, she’ll regret it. _I don’t have to commit to anything. Just go back and see if the situation’s changed._

Alexandra should feel better that she has some plan. Anything is better than nothing. Right? She’s going to solve this once and for all. So why does she still feel so nervous?


	14. Melanie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conflicts are resolved, things are said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for mention of a suicide attempt.

Mel wakes from the deep throes of a bad dream to a dark, quiet cabin. Bennett snores in his bunk across from her. Javi must be on shift right now. The train sighs on its track, quietly chugging along. The reading light above Alexandra’s bed is off, so she’s not come back. Alexandra would normally stay up late reading. Mel’s heart aches a little bit, as it does every time she is reminded of her daughter’s absence.

Bennett rolls over, the bunk creaking. Mel might as well try and go back to sleep. Her shift doesn’t start for another few hours. Since Alexandra left, the other engineers have had to go back to their pre-Wilford schedule. It’s not that different, but Mel misses the days when Alexandra could spell all three of them.

It’s dark outside; there is no moon. If Mel wanted, she could look up on one of the computers where in the world they were. _Can’t be bothered._ She pulls the blankets up higher when the the light next to her bed beeps softly. A tiny message scrolls across the screen: **presence required in Engine Room 1.** Javi never asks for her when she’s not on shift. The last time she remembers he did that was two years after departure, when a rockslide was in danger of colliding with the train. Javi knows how to drive the train on his own. If she’s needed in the engine, there’s either an imminent emergency, or something else is going on.

Regardless of what’s behind it, Mel can’t ignore a summons from the engine. She palms the control panel to the engine doors. When they whoosh open, the first person she sees is Javi, filling his water mug from the dispenser. “Hi,” he says.

“Why did you call me? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” Javi finishes refilling his glass and takes a swig from it. “There’s someone who wants to see you though,” he adds, hooking a thumb at the control desk behind him. _Alexandra._ “I’m going to bed.”

“Okay,” Mel says, apprehension building in her mind. “Good night.” Javi raises his mug to her in a mock-salute before the doors close behind him. The engine is empty now, except for Mel and Alexandra. Her daughter says nothing, no acknowledgement or greeting at all.

“Alexandra?” Mel asks, just to break the silence.

“Melanie,” comes the stony reply. Mel’s heart aches a little - that’s exactly how Wilford would respond. _Would have responded._

“How long have you been back?” Mel asks, cautiously.

“Since an hour ago.”

Mel wonders what happened in that hour between Alexandra and Javi, then decides it doesn’t matter. Alexandra’s back! She feels a tiny sprouting of hope in her heart, that maybe things will go back to - 

“I haven’t forgiven you, by the way. Or forgotten anything. I’m just here to…” Alexandra doesn’t turn around, but Mel can see her in the reflection of the front window. Her daughter’s face shows no emotion. “…gauge the situation.”

It always puts Mel on edge slightly, the clipped quality to Alexandra’s speech. She supposes it was living around Wilford that did that. Even after he’s gone, his influence refuses to die. “Alright.” Mel wrings her hands, feeling very alone just standing in the middle of the engine car, as if she’s a small child up past their bedtime. “Do you want to talk?” Alexandra says nothing. Mel thinks it safe enough to consider that as assent, so she takes a seat in the radio chair.

“Don’t turn around,” Alexandra says. “I won’t be able to talk if you look at me.”

“Okay,” Mel says, curling up on the chair. The radio is not visible; it’s been covered with the panel. There are tiny scratches and dings in it. _Don’t talk first:_ Audrey’s advice.

“When the trains connected, Wilford asked why I wanted to see you so badly. _She won’t change, Alexandra. She’ll be just as selfish as before._ I thought about that when I was down in Third Class. Almost thought Wilford was right. Then I saw the letter,” Alexandra says. “and I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

 _I’m your mother,_ Mel nearly says, but she knows how little that means now. “I meant that letter,” she offers lamely.

“You could have just faked it. You ran this train for seven years. I wouldn’t put it past you.” Alexandra sighs. “It did seem genuine. But I don’t know you, Melanie. I don’t - I can’t - trust you anymore.”

Alexandra’s only a metre away, but Mel can feel the chasm widening between them, close to the point of no return. As if to mirror the situation, the train passes underneath a broken bridge. The engine car feels sealed and inviolate - as if they are the only two people in the universe.

“I want to try,” Mel eventually says.

“You said that last time,” Alexandra says flatly. “Look where we are now.”

Mel can feel despair reaching up her throat, threatening to strangle her. She doesn’t want to have this conversation. At every turn she is blocked, and deservedly so. _I just want her back._ “Why did you do it?” Alexandra asks eventually. “I spent the last seven years…wondering what I did to have my own mother leave me. What did I do? Why did you leave me?”

Mel doesn’t want to tell this story, not because it’s too painful - even though it is - but in doing so she might torpedo her relationship with Alexandra forever. Her daughter’s not asked about it ever since she came back, and for a long time Mel was relieved that she didn’t have to reveal the most subhuman act she’s committed. She has to tell it anyway. Mel owes Alexandra this much.

“Everything was going too fast. The train wasn’t ready, the tickets weren’t finalised. A third of our supplies never made it off the platform. I didn’t have time to prepare. I needed to leave you with grandma and grandpa just for a little bit - or I thought I needed to. I was told I had to go on ahead, prepare the train. Everything came together too quickly. All of a sudden, it got way too cold, and Bennett was telling me we had to leave _now_ or we’d all die. So we left.” Mel bites her lip, uncertain of how to go on. “You asked me earlier if I cared about you. I don’t blame you for doubting that. I didn’t care - not enough to check you were onboard safely. That was the absolute bare minimum I could have done. I didn’t do even that. I got wrapped up in being the ‘saviour of humanity’, then realised too late that that doesn’t mean jack shit when I left my child to die.” Mel closes her eyes, opens them again. “It was nothing you did. You’re my daughter, it’s my responsibility to keep you safe, and…make sure you’re okay. In case it wasn’t clear before: none of this is your fault. It’s mine.”

The train turns a corner. Alexandra doesn’t question the validity of Mel’s confession. “What you said in the letter. About wanting to die. Was that true?”

“Yes. All of it.” Mel’d left the engine one month into departure, stood in the hallway that the First Class passengers had used to board the train. The control panel was open and waiting for her. All she had to do was place her hand on it, and the doors would pop open and the car would fill with ice. She was told it would be quick. Bennett, appropriately suspicious about her mental state, had followed Mel and dragged her bodily away from the door. Mel has no doubt that if it hadn’t been for him, she would gone ahead with it. Anything just to make the pain go away. Mel can’t tell Alexandra this, though. This event belongs in the deep recesses of her heart where it will never come out again. 

The control desk chair creaks a little, as if Alexandra is shifting in her seat. “I can’t…call you ‘mom’ anymore. I don’t think I can. I just…I can’t.”

Mel’s heart breaks at that, at the thought of maybe never getting verbal acknowledgement of her mom-ness again. It’s silly in the grand scheme of things, but _mom_ was something just for her, a one-name, something special and golden. Something that sustained her through all the years of working under Wilford and running an ark train. _Can I even call myself her mother?_ she’d asked Audrey several times. Alexandra must sense something’s off, because she says, “Melanie - ”

“No, it’s alright,” Mel rushes to amend the situation, “It’s alright. It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” Mel wants to turn around, take Alexandra in her arms and squish any anxiety over this out of her daughter, but she won’t. “I understand. After…everything, I understand.”

“You’re okay with that?”

“Yes, I am,” Mel says, and she realises it’s completely true. Alexandra deserves all the reassurance and love in the world, but Mel fears she’ll never be able to express it well enough. “It’s just a word. I said we can start over on your terms. I meant it.”

There’s a long silence. Then, so quietly Mel can barely hear her, Alexandra says, “Alright.’

* * *

After that, Alexandra told her to go back to bed. _I’ll take your shift._ Mel, sensing that her daughter wanted to be alone, did as she said. Javi and Bennett were both out cold, unaware of what had just transpired. The next morning dawned bright and sunny, with Alexandra back in her bunk, dead asleep. Bennett was in the control chair this time, reading Javi’s copy of _The Chrysalids._

“Javi will be mad you’re reading his book,” Mel says, perching on the edge of the control desk. “You know he always freaks out if someone touches his stuff.”

“It’ll be fine, Mel,” Bennett says good-naturedly. “Even if he does notice it’s gone, I’ll just say Alexandra was reading it. He lets her do whatever she likes.” This was definitely true: Javi was indulgent with Alexandra in a way he wasn’t with anyone else. Every now and then Mel would come into the engine to find him ruffling her hair or teaching her how to use the radio.

“Who lets me do whatever I like?” Alexandra puts a piece of bread in the toaster.

“Javi. I’m reading his book.”

“Tell him yourself,” Alexandra says in mock annoyance. “I don’t have a part in this.” She looks at Mel completely normally, as if last night didn’t even happen. “Did you sleep alright?”

“Yeah. Pretty good.”

“What’s the schedule looking like?” Alexandra asks, pulling her now-burnt toast out of the toaster. Ever since the cows died, the passengers had to make do with goat butter. Mel can’t say she likes it as much as proper butter, but her daughter doesn’t seem to mind.

Bennett puts down the book. “Technically you’re up next, then Mel, then Javi. I know you took a shift last night though, Alex, so if you want to swap places - “

“No, it’s fine. I like having the train. I’ll take over later.” Alexandra sits down in the radio chair, stuffing the toast in her mouth. “Has anyone got plans today?”

Mel was going to go see Audrey, but after last night and the fight a week before, it seems a little tone-deaf to be so open about it. Then again, it’s not like she has any other reason to leave the engine apart from seeing Layton. Thankfully she is saved from replying. Bennett smirks and says, “I’m thinking I’ve not graced the Third Class casino with my presence in a while.”

“Why do you go there?” asks Alexandra, brushing the crumbs from her shirt. “You can’t win actual money. What’s the point?”

“Mental stimulation,” Bennett says, winking. “I’d best be off. Before that black market dealer takes over the poker table.” He stands and leaves, the engine doors whooshing shut behind him.

“Are we not stimulating enough for him?” Alexandra asks Mel once Bennett’s gone.

“He’s just joking around. Are you planning on anything today?”

“I’ll just stay here.” Alexandra takes the now vacant control desk seat. “I have the train. Melanie.”

Mel stands up, moves off the control desk. Now that they’re alone, Alexandra looks far more relaxed. As if things are really going back to normal. “You do have the train.”

* * *

“She’s not calling me ‘mom’ anymore.” Mel tries to sound casual about it, but her voice breaks a little. She’d turned up at the Nightcar twenty minutes ago. Only to find it empty with Audrey on the balcony presiding over the dance floor. As if she’d been waiting. As if she’d known. Mel had joined her up there, given a heavily abridged version of the events from last night. It didn’t seem fair to tell the whole story - she’d leave that for Alexandra. Audrey didn’t press for details, seemingly aware of Mel’s intent. “It’s strange. I didn’t hear it for seven years, and I probably won’t hear it again.”

“I’m sorry, Melanie,” Audrey says. “That must have been hard to hear.”

“No, it’s just some name. It’s not a big deal. I got my daughter back.” Mel shifts herself closer to Audrey. “She can call me whatever she wants.” She doesn’t say much more than that, and Audrey doesn’t push further.

“I’m glad this worked out for both of you,” Audrey says after a while. “I didn’t expect it to go this way, but I’m happy that it didn’t implode like I was scared it would.”

The gap between their two hands is so small, so inconsequential. What a trifle it would be, Mel thinks, if she was to get closer. She moves her hand just so, until it is right on top of Audrey’s.

“Are you sure?” Audrey asks once she notices, a hint of a smile on her face. “You’re okay with being seen by everyone?”

In all honesty, this has not occurred to Mel before now. Normally this would send her mind into veritable overdrive, constant checks and balances to make sure she was keeping up the appropriate appearances. Now, though…Mel finds she doesn’t care. Wilford is gone and her daughter’s back. Being with Audrey is nothing now.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Audrey’s smile turns from a hint to something open and genuine. “Wow. I don’t even recognise you anymore, Melanie.”

“You love it,” Mel says, without thinking.

“You know I do.” Audrey’s hand moves to Mel’s waist, pulls her so close they are touching. It feels as if there’s an electric current moving between them, and Mel can’t say she hates this feeling at all. _I haven’t known this for seven years…_ “I love you, Melanie.”

Mel’s brain short-circuits. “W-what?”

Audrey frowns in mock seriousness. “Are you going to make me say it again?”

“But…” Mel’s heart rate speeds up, and she pulls away from Audrey. “You should be scared of me. Why aren’t you scared of me?” she asks, and she hates how pathetic she sounds. “All the things I did…how can you trust me?” All too soon, she realises with an icy-cold terror that she doesn’t want to know the answer to this question. Her surroundings feel shimmery and impermanent, as if they will disappear. Mel’s breath hitches in her throat. _Why can't you just let things be?_ she thinks weakly. “How can you love me like this?”

“Don’t you think I asked myself the same question?” Audrey says. Her tone is kinder than her words. “I know what you’re thinking. But at the end of the day…you’re trying to be better. Right?” Mel nods. “I guess that’s what matters. I’m not going to forget what you did to Third. But you’re trying to do better than that. I see it.”

“I just…” Mel searches for the right words to express her predicament. “I love you too, but. It’s hard to believe. After all this time.”

“I’ll keep telling you then. Until you believe it.” Audrey winks, something private for only Mel to see. “I love you,” she says again, and the way her voice rests on every word proves to Mel, just slightly, that Audrey means it.

* * *

It’s midday by the time Mel gets back to the engine in time for her shift. Bennett is nowhere to be found - clearly he’s still living it up at the casino downtrain. Alexandra made herself scarce once Mel turned up, but Mel can tell it’s not out of avoidance this time. “Seeing LJ,” comes the quick reply before the doors slide shut.

Mel feels no misgiving. Alexandra can look after herself. Mostly Mel is glad her daughter’s found friends - even if that friend is a former murderer. She has no room to judge, and she knows it. Javi isn’t around either - it’s his turn to meet with Layton today. The rest of the day passes uneventfully - Javi returns at six for his shift, and the other two show up not too long after. They have the evening meal together in the engine room, speaking desultorily of the day’s events. It’s not until early the next morning, when everyone is either on shift or in bed that Mel silently opens the bunk drawer and withdraws the box within.

In the box, there are at least thirty more cards and letters and pictures from Alexandra. All lovingly tied up with string and stacked in chronological order. At the bottom, there are animal drawings from Alexandra’s time in preschool. At the top, there are letters to Mel from a school project, not six months before departure. Mel doesn’t bring these out in front of anyone. It feels somehow wrong to be reminiscing on the past this long after departure. Stuffed into the side of the box is an old favourite: made of fluorescent pink construction paper. On the back is a sticky note which says in Mel’s own handwriting: _9/4/2017._ Alexandra would have been seven years old then.

Mel opens it with a reverent carefulness, wary of accidentally tearing the paper. The card is worn and faded with time. The writing on the front has survived, however: _I love you mommy,_ in squiggly, little-kid letters. Small glittery flower stickers decorate the edges in a wonky, multicoloured frieze. There’s very little to it, but it means everything. Mel remembers getting this card: a rough day at work, more engineering failures, endless berating from Wilford. She’d plopped down at her desk, when she saw the corner of the card sticking out of her bag. Alexandra must have stuffed it in there before Mel’d left for work.

Mel is glad she kept this. At the end of the day, she would be happy if this was the only thing of hers that made it on the train. This box and its contents are worth more than gold. Mel slides the cover back onto the box, but leaves the card out. Now that the conflict is over and she doesn’t have a double life anymore, she can leave it out with no fear. Mel wedges it into the windowsill, where the motion of the train won’t dislodge it.

The sun is rising in the bunk window, creating streaks of gold and yellow across the sky. There are no clouds; the coming day will be a clear one. Alexandra mumbles in her sleep and rolls over in the bunk above. The proverbial storm has passed. The train chugs its familiar rhythm. Finally, Mel feels the foundation of her world go steady under her feet - now she can take the next step without fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! We're done! Hope y'all enjoyed it - I sure did (lol). I may write a conclusion for this series...maybe, maybe not! We'll have to see!
> 
> also I was on wattpad a while ago and i read this kpop fic where instead of page breaks or w/e it said 'time skippy!' and i was just thinking how funny that would be if i put that in this fic


End file.
